Ethiopian Politicians in Hunger Strike Urge End to Impasse

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Bloomberg | Opposition leaders have gone without food for almost 3 weeks. Oromo Federal Congress leaders facing terrorism charges.

Time is “running out” to resolve an impasse with imprisoned Ethiopian opposition leaders who’ve spent almost three weeks without food, according to a lawyer for one of the key figures behind the protest.

Media mogul Jawar Mohammed’s representative said the hunger strike was endangering the inmates’ lives and urged the government to seek a quick resolution.

“We are running out of time,” said lawyer Kedir Bulo. “All concerned bodies are advised to think judiciously and take prompt action to resolve the cause of the hunger strike.”

Two dozen leaders of the Oromo Federal Congress including Jawar were arrested in July on terrorism charges. They started the hunger strike on Jan. 27.

Prisoners’ Demands
The jailed politicians are demanding the government release prisoners of conscience and reinstate opposition party licenses. Jawar will continue the strike until political prisoners are freed, his lawyer said.

Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s spokeswoman Billene Seyoum referred questions to the Attorney General and the police as Jawar is “under custody and under an ongoing criminal case.” The Attorney General’s office did not respond to questions.

The “reasonably justified demands of the prisoners must be addressed,” the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission said in a statement earlier this month.

Unrest in the region erupted after the assassination of Hachalu Hundessa, a popular Oromo musician, song-writer and advocate of the Oromo ethnic group.

A humanitarian disaster stares Ethiopia’s Tigray in the face

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Hunger stalks region of six million people as federal government’s offensive against rebels enters its fourth month

Over a million people could starve if aid is not allowed into conflict zone, says Famine Early Warning Systems Network

Arab News | DUBAI: With their few hurriedly packed belongings wrapped tightly in fabric, entire families, many with young children, are traversing vast distances on foot these days to escape fighting in northern Ethiopia between federal armed forces and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF).

Since the conflict erupted three months ago, nearly two million Ethiopians have been forced to flee the country’s Tigray region, many arriving in neighboring Sudan with axe and knife wounds, others with broken bones and severe mental trauma.

Those who have chosen to stay behind — the vast majority of Tigray’s six million inhabitants — now face shortages of food, medicine and drinking water. Ethiopia is facing accusations of blocking aid and the specter of mass hunger haunts the region.

Most concerning of all is the imminent risk of mass hunger, a phenomenon Ethiopians are tragically familiar with. The Great Famine that afflicted the country between 1888 and 1892 killed roughly one-third of its population. Another in 1983-85 left 1.2 million dead.

According to the Famine Early Warning Systems Network, presided over by the US government, parts of central and eastern Tigray are just a step away from famine, with fears more than a million could die of starvation if aid is not allowed in soon.

In a recent statement, a trio of Tigray opposition parties said that at least 50,000 civilians had been killed in the conflict since November. Aid agencies and journalists have not been permitted access to the region to verify the death toll.

Ethiopian authorities insist aid is being delivered and that nearly 1.5 million people have been reached. But experts on the Horn of Africa believe one of the worst humanitarian disasters in modern history is unfolding in the conflict zone.

“If the world averts its eyes, it is a bystander to one of the most grievous mass atrocities of our era,” Alex de Waal, executive director of the World Peace Foundation and a research professor at The Fletcher School at Tufts University, told Arab News.

“It will be an unforgivable ethical stain. It is also a matter of interest. Do the countries of the Arabian Peninsula want to see another Yemen-like calamity on the southern shores of the Red Sea — a little further away, but even bigger.”

The TPLF, which had dominated Ethiopian politics after the fall of the military dictatorship in 1991 until Abiy’s election victory in 2018, had been in coalition with the current government until the two sides fell out in 2019.

In direct defiance of the federal government’s decision to postpone all votes until the COVID-19 pandemic was under control, Tigray authorities pressed ahead with their own parliamentary election in September. Federal authorities said the vote was illegal.

Tensions escalated further in November when Abiy accused the TPLF of seizing a military base in the regional capital Mekelle. His government responded by declaring a state of emergency, cutting off electricity, internet and telephone services, and designating the TPLF as a terrorist organization.

Although Abiy claimed victory when federal troops entered Mekelle on Nov. 28, the bloodshed has continued as Tigrayan leaders have vowed to fight on.

“The federal government called the conflict a law enforcement operation (intended) to remove from office the Tigray region’s rogue executive,” William Davison, International Crisis Group’s senior analyst for Ethiopia, told Arab News.

“The reality was that Tigray’s defenses were overwhelmed by the full power of the Ethiopian federal military and allied forces.”

FASTFACTS
UN REPORT HIGHLIGHTS
* Reports from aid workers on the ground indicate rise in acute malnutrition across Tigray region.

* Only 1% of the nearly 920 nutrition treatment facilities are reachable.

* Aid response is drastically inadequate, with little access to rural population off the main roads.

* Some aid workers have to negotiate access with armed actors, even Eritrean ones.

After presenting the TPLF as a treasonous entity that had attacked the military and violated the constitutional order, the Ethiopian government said it was left with no choice but to act.

The Ethiopian government has also moved against those who questioned whether the intervention would be as quick and painless as it first claimed — including Davison, who was deported on Nov. 20 without an official reason.

“If you now say things critical of the government then you will be perceived as doing the bidding of the opponent, the TPLF,” said Davison, who is now based in Kenya.

“Myself and others were perceived to be doing the work of the TPLF and the government was doing its utmost to convince everyone that the TPLF was a treasonous entity that had attacked the military and violated the constitutional order.”

Abiy, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2019 for restoring relations with Ethiopia’s long-time foe Eritrea, is now being accused by some of war crimes in Tigray.

Seyoum Mesfin, a former Ethiopian foreign minister, peacemaker and an elder statesman of Africa, was among three TPLF leaders killed by the military in early January in a move that sparked an international outcry.

Pramila Patten, the UN envoy on sexual violence in conflict. has said there are “disturbing reports of individuals allegedly forced to rape members of their own family, under threats of imminent violence.”

Recently, the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission said 108 cases of rape had been reported over the last two months in the whole of Tigray. It admitted that “local structures such as police and health facilities where victims of sexual violence would normally turn to report such crimes are no longer in place.”

All this amounts to a sharp reversal of fortune for a country that just months ago was being feted as Africa’s fastest growing economy. Now, Ethiopian journalists and human-rights activists are afraid to speak out, many of them avoiding the border areas and letting military atrocities go unreported.

“We’ve been on our toes for months now. You need to be very careful with your comments,” one Addis Ababa-based political analyst, who did not wish to be identified, told Arab News.

“Human-rights abuses are being committed on all sides: the Amhara militias (one of the two largest ethnic groups in Ethiopia), the federal troops themselves and the Eritreans too.

“The humanitarian aspect of the conflict is frightening and especially the lack of indication from the government’s side in providing aid. They say they will, publicly. But large sections of Tigray are still inaccessible. It’s very difficult to say how long they intend to keep it this way, which is of great concern.”

Eritrean soldiers have compounded the problem by reportedly attacking the TPLF on behalf of Abiy’s government, prompting calls from Joe Biden’s administration for their immediate withdrawal. (Both Asmara and Addis Ababa deny that Eritrean forces are present in Tigray.)

Reports say many of the estimated 100,000 Eritrean refugees residing in the region are at risk of getting caught in the crossfire or being forcibly returned. Filippo Grandi, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, has said he is “deeply alarmed by reports of refugees being killed, abducted and forcibly returned to Eritrea that would constitute a major violation of international law.”

De Waal of the World Peace Foundation says if the war causes a humanitarian catastrophe and the economic collapse of Ethiopia, there is no doubt that the consequences will be felt far and wide.

“The human and economic price will be paid by the people of the Horn of Africa, but those people will also start moving en masse towards Europe, and the humanitarian cum economic bailout bill will be presented to Europe and the US,” he told Arab News.

“At a time of austerity and reduced aid budgets, this presents aid donors with a terrible dilemma.”

Summing up the Tigray crisis and its potential solution without mincing words, De Waal said: “With every passing day there is more suffering, killing, starvation, deeper bitterness and wider repercussions. Withdraw Eritrean troops. Then start political talks.”

Ethiopia Thwarts Iranian Plot to Attack UAE Embassy

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Source | Iran is seeking to “activate sleeper cells” in Africa in order to attack “soft targets” in an attempt to avenge the killing of top commander Qassem Soleimani in a US drone strike and its top nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh in 2020, reported The New York Times.

When Ethiopia’s intelligence agency recently uncovered a cell of 15 people it said were casing the embassy of the United Arab Emirates, along with a cache of weapons and explosives, it claimed to have foiled a major attack with the potential to sow havoc in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa.

But the Ethiopians omitted a key detail about the purported plot: who was behind it.

The only clue was the arrest of a 16th person: Accused of being the ringleader, Ahmed Ismail had been picked up in Sweden with the cooperation of friendly “African, Asian and European intelligence services,” the Ethiopians said.

Now American and Israeli officials say the operation was the work of Iran, whose intelligence service activated a sleeper cell in Addis Ababa last fall with orders to gather intelligence also on the embassies of the United States and Israel, reported the NYT.

They say the Ethiopian operation was part of a wider drive to seek soft targets in African countries where Iran might avenge painful, high-profile losses such as the death of Fakhrizadeh, said to have been killed by Israel in November, and Soleimani, killed by the United States in Iraq just over one year ago.

Citing Western intelligence sources, Rear Adm. Heidi K. Berg, director of intelligence at the Pentagon’s Africa command, said that Iran was behind the 15 people arrested in Ethiopia and that the “mastermind of this foiled plot,” Mr. Ismail, had been arrested in Sweden.

“Ethiopia and Sweden collaborated on the disruption to the plot,” Admiral Berg said in a statement.

Iran denied the accusations. “These are baseless allegations only provoked by the Zionist regime’s malicious media,” said a spokeswoman for the Iranian Embassy in Addis Ababa.

Even so, Ethiopia’s National Intelligence and Security Service said that a second group of plotters had been preparing to hit the Emirati Embassy in Khartoum, Sudan. A Sudanese official confirmed that account.

A senior United States defense official linked the arrests in Ethiopia to a failed Iranian plan to kill the United States ambassador to South Africa, which was reported by Politico in September. The American and Sudanese officials agreed to discuss the matter on condition of anonymity because of its diplomatic and intelligence sensitivity.

Still, much about the Ethiopian arrests and alleged Iranian role remained murky. The Ethiopian police have yet to formally charge the 15 plot suspects, only two of whom have been identified. Israeli officials say that as few as three of them may be actual Iranian operatives, with the others having been caught in the Ethiopian dragnet.

While Admiral Berg confirmed several details about Iran’s role in the Ethiopian arrests, other military and diplomatic officials in Washington declined to discuss it.

In contrast, officials in Israel, whose government is openly hostile to any thaw between Washington and Tehran, highlighted the purported plot as further evidence that Iran cannot be trusted.

For all its efforts, Iran has yet to deliver on its promises of vengeance for its high-profile losses, beyond a missile attack on American forces in Iran in January 2020, days after Soleimani was killed.

Any plan similar to the plot thwarted in Ethiopia, would be a curious choice, given its potential to undermine Joe Biden’s putative nuclear diplomacy with Iran, said Aaron David Miller, a foreign policy expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

“Africa is a relatively easy place to operate, and Ethiopia is preoccupied with other issues,” said Bruce Riedel, a former CIA officer now with the Brookings Institution, according to the NYT.

Meanwhile, the Jewish Chronicle revealed last week that the Israeli Mossad was behind the killing of Fakhrizadeh.

He was “killed by a one-ton automated gun that was smuggled into Iran piece-by-piece by the Mossad,” it reported.

“The 20-plus spy team, which comprised both Israeli and Iranian nationals, carried out the high-tech hit after eight months of painstaking surveillance, intelligence sources disclosed.”

Ethiopia’s Tigray conflict and the battle to control information

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Al Jazeera | Warnings about deterioration of press freedom as independent journalists endure harassment, denied access to embattled northern region

The eruption of fighting in Ethiopia’s Tigray region 100 days ago has pitted journalists wanting to report on the conflict against a government seeking to maintain total narrative control.

The government-imposed lockdown of the northern region and communications blackout affecting the internet, mobile phones and landlines has made access and assessment for aid agencies dealing with the unfolding humanitarian crisis extremely difficult. It has also made it next to impossible for media seeking entry to investigate artillery attacks on populated areas, deliberate targeting and massacres of civilians, extrajudicial killings, widespread looting and rape, including by suspected Eritrean soldiers.

At the same time, journalists in the country have been detained, faced threats and harassment – and even attacks.

“This is the worst period in my 10-plus years of journalism,” said one Addis Ababa-based Ethiopian freelance journalist, who, like every journalist contacted for this article, insisted on anonymity due to fear of reprisals, both professional and physical.

The journalist noted that even before Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed ordered the November 4 offensive to remove the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) after attacks of federal army bases, the government was already using new anti-hate speech and fake news legislation against critical journalists. “The risk was mainly restricted to imprisonment and verbal harassment. Now, you have the extra risk of losing your life or having your house ransacked as well as vicious social media trolling.”

The journalist said they have had to abandon several writing projects, including one on the plight of a small ethnic group caught up in the secretive Tigray conflict, due to fears about “plain old thuggery and intimidation of journalists”.

‘Regressing signs’

The list of attacks on and intimidation of journalists in Ethiopia is growing. After the Addis Standard, one of Ethiopia’s most influential independent publications, issued a statement in early November urging the government to open channels of communication, Medihane Ekubamichael, a senior editor, was arrested at his home for “attempts to dismantle the Constitution through violence” and “outrage against the Constitution”. He was soon released – but then arrested again and held for about a month. Responsible for much of the paper’s day-to-day operations, his absence meant it had to reduce its journalistic output.

On January 19, Dawit Kebede Araya, a reporter with broadcaster Tigray TV, was found dead with gunshot wounds to his head in his car near Mekelle, Tigray’s regional capital. The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has urged an independent investigation into whether his killing was motivated by his work.

On February 8, Ethiopian freelance journalist Lucy Kassa, who has reported about Tigray for several foreign media including the Los Angeles Times and Al Jazeera, said armed intruders broke into her Addis Ababa home. She said men knocked her to the ground, raided her apartment and took a laptop and other items related to her reporting, accusing her of “spreading lies” and supporting “the Tigray junta”.

Three leading Democratic US senators recently wrote to Abiy expressing concerns about the erosion of press freedoms and the government’s “draconian tactics”, while calling for the release of detained journalists.

Now, rights groups said the continuing clash about freedom of the press is rolling back gains made by the country’s long-suffering media, signalling a swing back towards authoritarian intolerance.

“The imprisonment of journalists, many of whom were held for weeks without formal charges, are an indicator of the deterioration of press freedom in Ethiopia and a sign that the government is regressing despite the positive reforms made in 2018 when Abiy became prime minister,” said Muthoki Mumo, CPJ’s representative for sub-Saharan Africa.

“Ethiopian journalists should feel free to publish critical reports and commentary, and this cannot happen in an environment where police can arrest and hold them for weeks without charge, blatantly weaponising the judicial system to intimidate the media.”

The press secretary for the Office of the Prime Minister of Ethiopia did not respond to several requests for comment.

Media landscape challenges

When Abiy was awarded the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize, the committee praised his “discontinuing media censorship” among his achievements during his first 100 days in power. Positive changes to Ethiopia’s media landscape, including the country ending its block of more than 260 websites and lifting a ban on media outlets forced to work in exile, saw Ethiopia rise in the World Press Freedom Index compiled by Reporters Without Borders (RSF) from 150 out of 180 countries in 2018 to the 99th rank in 2020. The CPJ’s 2018 annual Prison Census report on journalists imprisoned for their work around the world included no Ethiopians – a first in 14 years.

But as Abiy’s tenure has progressed, so has criticism of his lack of transparency – the prime minister announced the Tigray offensive, in effect a declaration of war, on Facebook – and for repeating what has always happened in Ethiopia when a fresh administration arrives promising reform and freedom of speech: initially new media flourish as restrictions are lifted, but within a few years, the situation returns to the old ways of previous Ethiopian governments.

The CPJ’s 2020 Prison Census published in December 2020 included seven Ethiopian journalists, the third-most among sub-Saharan African countries, after Eritrea and Cameroon (six Ethiopian journalists have been released since the report was published).

Monitors do acknowledge that the government has to deal with a media landscape that is institutionally weak, in which freedom of expression is abused by some media to foment tension and partisanship, even ethnic violence.

“There are legitimate concerns from state and non-state actors about misinformation, disinformation and incitement, particularly during times of political tension,” Muthoki said. “However, these concerns should not be used as pretext to harass the media for critical reporting; to criminalise dissenting views; or as justification to throw journalists behind bars.”

It has long been understood that Ethiopian journalists have it tougher than Ethiopia-based foreign journalists who can more easily seek backup from international agencies or embassies. Ethiopian journalists from Tigray face even more difficulties from the conflict’s fallout. Ethnic Tigrayan journalists have reportedly been collectively suspended from state media outlets, while several anchors of state-owned Ethiopian television were suspended from work for objecting to the wording of news about the Tigray war, according to a source in the industry.

Commenting on an RSF statement about the attack on Kassa, who is Tigrayan, the government’s Ethiopia State of Emergency Fact Check said “all individuals need to be free from any form of harm” but added the press watchdog was wrong in describing her as working for foreign organisations because she did not have the necessary press authorisation.

CPJ condemned the government unit’s statement as “disgraceful”. “Instead of identifying these attackers and holding them to account, authorities have instead sought to discredit Lucy Kassa by saying she’s not a legally registered journalist, exposing growing hostility to the [press],” it said.

‘Extreme intolerance’

But the screw seems to be turning also on foreign journalists, too. Even while being denied access in Tigray, journalists have said that members of foreign media are also portrayed by the Ethiopian state as “traitors” and enemies of Ethiopia, “paid by Western governments to destabilise Ethiopia”. Foreign reporters also report difficulties renewing work visas, while some have been threatened with deportation. Just quoting the TPLF, the region’s former governing party that has clashed with Abiy, will get you in trouble, journalists have said.

“The level of intolerance around Tigray is as extreme as anything I have seen,” said one long-term commentator on Ethiopia who recently visited the country after working there for nearly a decade, and who described Abiy as displaying “classic dictatorial tendencies”.

There have also been suggestions by journalists the government is employing a coordinated strategy to oppress and undermine journalists through social media, state media and the Ethiopian diaspora. Al Jazeera could not independently verify these claims.

But just as the government is being accused of firing out reams of propaganda and leveraging claims of fake news, so, too, have its opponents. The anti-government strategy appears to be focused on increasing activity on social media – in particular, on Twitter – with supporters encouraged to create new accounts and respond to content about the conflict while also spreading hashtags and tweeting at influential Twitter users. The government has countered by positioning itself in the role of fact-checker and provider of reliable information, usurping the job that the media should be doing.

The result is an extremely confusing information environment compounded by a general sense of suspicion about the information coming out about the conflict – all of which journalists must contend with and try to make sense of, while being impeded by the government.

“The government needs to understand the media is an important component to building a strong democratic society that can inform the public and serve as a platform for dialogue,” said Tewodrose Tirfe, chair of the Amhara Association of America, a US-based advocacy group for the Amhara, Ethiopia’s second-largest ethnic group.

“The government needs to view the Ethiopian media as a partner and not limit journalists access to conflict areas and government officials.”

‘Ethiopia to welcome mediation of Turkey with Sudan’

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Anadolu Agency | ‘War is not an agenda. If mediation is offered by Turkey, Ethiopia will appreciate it,’ says Foreign Ministry spokesperson

ANKARA

If offered, Ethiopia would appreciate the Turkish government’s mediation on the recent border conflict with Sudan, said the Ethiopian Foreign Ministry spokesperson on Tuesday.

In an exclusive interview with Anadolu Agency, Ambassador Dina Mufti underscored that the Ethio-Sudanese border conflict could be solved through diplomatic means.

With a 1,600-km (994-mile) long shared border, Ethiopia and Sudan face issues regarding the Fashaga Triangle, a decades-long-disputed border without hard demarcation.

The spokesperson also appreciated the constructive relations within the Horn of Africa despite the recent issues with Sudan.

“Without exaggerating, We now have a great relationship with Eritrea, Djibouti, Somalia, Kenya, and Sudan despite the unfortunate borders situation that is created the other day,” he added.

He also urged cooperation and the creation of a grow-together spirit throughout the region. “The relationship in the north is changing for good. However, we need to cooperate in this regard,” he also noted.

Regarding the operation in Tigray, he said Ethiopia has already started rehabilitation and widened the humanitarian aid reach throughout the whole region.

“So far, 80% of the region has been covered. The rest is eventually opening, and Ethiopia mobilizes its aid to that area too,” Dina added.

Mentioning the misinformation campaign against the country, he said some forces make a “fortune” out of the “crisis” in developing countries like Ethiopia.

‘We want Ethio-Turkish relations to flourish’

Reminding the strategic bilateral ties, Dina Mufti told Anadolu Agency that Ethiopia wants the relations to flourish in various areas, including developmental, security, and economy.

During their visit to Turkey on Feb. 15-16, the ambassador said Ethiopia and Turkey’s foreign ministers had discussed further strengthening of socio-economic and security ties.

On Feb. 15, Ethiopia and Turkey have celebrated the 125th anniversary of diplomatic relations as Demeke Mekonnen, the Ethiopian deputy prime minister and foreign minister, arrived in Turkey for a brief work visit.

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, with his counterpart Demeke, has also inaugurated Ethiopia’s new embassy building in the capital Ankara.

Ethiopia hires lobbying help amid dual threats from Egypt, human rights critics

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Foreign Lobby | Ethiopia has hired a new lobbying firm for outreach to Congress and the Joe Biden administration as the country battles a diplomatic crisis with Egypt and ethnic strife at home.

The Ethiopian Embassy in Washington signed a $35,000-per-month contract with DC-based law firm Venable on Feb. 1. The contract is for an initial three months but can be extended.

Venable will provide “government relations service which may include outreach to the United States Congress and the federal government,” according to the new filing with the US Justice Department. Registered on the account are attorney Thomas Quinn and policy adviser Loren Aho. The pair also represent the Embassy of Qatar in Washington, while Quinn also represents the Hong Kong Trade Development Council.

Venable declined to comment beyond what’s in the filing. The Ethiopian Embassy did not respond to a request for comment.

The new hire comes as Ethiopia is under increasing pressure in Washington on several fronts.

Regional rival Egypt has been flexing its new lobbying muscle to try to convince Biden to follow President Donald Trump‘s lead and side with Cairo in its dispute with Addis Ababa over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, or GERD. Ethiopia sees the 6,450 MW project as a vital development priority, but Egypt and Sudan want a say in how it is filled because of concerns it could hurt their downstream share of Nile waters.

Egypt benefited from personal ties between President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and Trump, who famously referred to his Egyptian counterpart as “my favorite dictator” and tried to broker a deal between Ethiopia, Egypt and Sudan at the White House. Dissatisfied with what it called the “lack of progress” in resolving the dispute, Trump’s State Department even suspended some aid to Ethiopia in September “based on guidance from the president.”

Outflanked in Washington, the government of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed hired its first lobbying firm last summer. The contract with Barnes & Thornburg was for $130,000 but only lasted from June 30 to Sept. 30 (the firm provided no services after that date and is expected to shortly file paperwork indicating that it formally terminated its registration on Jan. 19, the day before Biden’s inauguration, Foreign Lobby Report has learned).

Lobbying filings show that Barnes & Thornburg’s lobbying focused exclusively on the dam issue. The firm contacted multiple congressional offices over the summer as well as officials at the National Security Council, the State Department and the Treasury Department, which Trump had put in charge of the negotiations.

Following Trump’s defeat, the Egyptian Embassy in Washington moved quickly to hire Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck on a year-long, $65,000-a-month contract. Former House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed Royce (R-Calif.), former Sen. Mark Begich (D-Alaska) and Nadeam Elshami, a former chief of staff to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), are lobbying for the embassy.

Earlier this month, Royce touted his conservationist credentials to pitch a virtual congressional briefing by the embassy.

“As you may know, the negotiations surrounding the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam have stalled,” Royce wrote to congressional staff. “Without an enforceable agreement, the operations of the dam will have significant environmental ramifications, for both the populations of Egypt and Sudan as well as for the Nile’s regional ecosystems.”

Ethiopia is also facing pushback over long-simmering ethnic tensions, including in the northern region of Tigray that broke out into open conflict in November. At the time Biden’s pick for Jake Sullivan warned of “potential war crimes” and urged the Ethiopian government and the fugitive leaders of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) to open negotiations facilitated by the African Union.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken has also called for an end to the violence that has killed thousands of people and displaced nearly half a million others. He expressed his concerns about the situation in Tigray on a phone call with Ahmed on Feb. 4.

Ethiopia has enjoyed a helping hand from some Ethiopian-American activists in the Nile dispute. Two groups, the Ethiopian American Civic Council and the Ethiopian Advocacy Network, successfully urged the Congressional Black Caucus last year to object to Trump’s perceived siding with Egypt in the dispute.

“The Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) urges the United States and all other international actors to respect the 2015 Declaration of Principles trilateral agreement signed between Egypt, Sudan, and Ethiopia, and to continue to play an impartial role, only seeking the counsel of the African Union and diplomats on the ground in the region,” the group wrote in a June 23 statement. “In particular, the African Union has a pivotal role to play by expressing to all parties that a peaceful negotiated deal benefits all and not just some on the continent.”

But Abiy also has fierce critics in the diaspora.

Among them is the Oromo Legacy Leadership & Advocacy Association, a Washington-area nonprofit that advocates for human rights in Ethiopia. The group works with policy advisory firm Von Batten-Montague-York, which retained DiRoma Eck & Co., a new firm started by former Trump Treasury Department officials Andrew Eck and Michael DiRoma, in November to lobby for sanctions against “members of the Ethiopian security forces responsible for the extrajudicial killings and other human rights abuses.”

Activist Seenaa Jimjimo founded the group to fight for the rights of the Oromo, a marginalized ethnic group in Ethiopia. But as violence flared up in Tigray she told The Influencers podcast co-hosted by Foreign Lobby Report and crisis communications firm LEVICK that the group is coordinating with victims of violence across the country regardless of their ethnicity.

“We stand with the Tigrayan people and we are working closely with them trying to highlight the human rights violations,” Jimjimo said in December. “What is happening with the Tigray right now is that has happened with the Oromo for so long.”

Finding a Path to Peace in Ethiopia’s Tigray Region War has devastated Ethiopia’s northernmost region.

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International Crisis Group | Pending comprehensive national dialogue, Addis Ababa should ease Tigray’s immediate predicament, engaging elements of the authorities it unseated to govern the area and ensure that aid reaches the millions in need.

What’s new? After weeks of fighting in Ethiopia’s Tigray region, federal troops removed the regional government and declared victory. Yet thousands have died, hundreds of thousands are at risk of starvation and the conflict continues. Addis Ababa has established an interim administration, but ousted Tigrayan politicians say they will fight back.

Why did it happen? Relations between Addis Ababa and Mekelle tanked after Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed took office in 2018 and Tigray’s leaders lost federal power. Tensions spiked when Tigray defied central authority by holding regional elections in September, culminating when Tigrayan forces captured the national military command in the region, triggering federal intervention.

Why does it matter? The conflict has poisoned relations between Tigrayan and other Ethiopian elites and inflamed public opinion in Tigray against the federal authorities, who may well struggle to administer a restive region. If Addis Ababa’s energies are drained by enforcing its rule on Tigray, other Ethiopian ethno-nationalist forces may be emboldened.

What should be done? To get Tigray’s public on side, Ababa Ababa should ensure that Eritrean and Amhara regional forces that participated in the intervention withdraw. It also should urgently allow aid to reach all Tigrayans who need it. Ultimately, inclusive dialogue is needed to address federal-Tigray disagreements and wider disputes over regional autonomy. Read more

Ethiopia’s secret war in Tigray region: Ethnic killings, rapes, near-starvation reported

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Fox News | If the fighting doesn’t end soon, an American woman with family in the region said, “we’ll be left without families”

Many women have “conclusively and without a doubt” been raped in the Tigray region, home to Ethiopia’s secretive conflict – which may have left tens of thousands of civilians dead – the country’s minister for women said Thursday in a rare government admission of its fallout.

More than 100 women in the largely remote northern region have reported being raped amid the four-month-long conflict between Ethiopian forces and allied fighters – including Eritrean fighters whose presence is denied – and the fugitive former leaders of Tigray who long dominated Ethiopia’s government.

The rape allegations have come out despite women having few police or health facilities for reporting alleged crimes.

“Hence, there is a possibility that the actual number of cases might be higher and more widespread than the reported cases,” the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission said in a report of the 108 alleged rapes over the last two months.

Both sides in the conflict that started in early November see the other as illegitimate after last year’s national elections were delayed because of the coronavirus and Tigray defiantly held its own.

Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed once said no civilian had been killed in the conflict, but more recently he admitted it has “caused much distress for me personally.”

Abiy, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2019, attempted to centralize power in the country in September and was reportedly furious over Tigray’s decision to hold its own election after the national elections were postponed.

Hailu Kebede, foreign affairs head for the Salsay Woyane Tigray opposition party, called the conflict the “least-documented” war, estimating along with two others, that more than 52,000 civilians have died over the last few months.

“The world will apologize to the people of Tigray, but it will be too late,” he told The Associated Press.

Journalists have been barred from the region where communications are patchy but accounts from survivors who have escaped paint an unthinkable picture of the atrocities occurring in the region.

Disturbing reports have included claims of people being forced to rape members of their own family under threat of violence and women forced to have sex with soldiers in exchange for basic necessities.

“Many, many severe cases of malnutrition” have been also reported in the region where the vast majority of its 6 million citizens remain unreachable, the Red Cross said Wednesday. The organization said thousands could starve to death.

A woman from Tigray studying in Europe said Ethiopian soldiers had recently come to her village with food but are withholding it from families suspected of having ties to Tigray fighters.

“If you don’t bring your father, your brothers, you don’t get the aid, you’ll starve,” the woman told the Associated Press after somehow speaking to her sister who lives in the Tigray.

She also learned that her uncle and two nephews were killed by Eritrean soldiers during a recent holiday gathering. A local advocacy association, relying on witnesses who have reached cities with phone service, has listed 59 victims overall.

“I’m so ashamed of my government,” the student, speaking on condition of anonymity for her family’s safety, cried. And since it’s nearly impossible to contact people in the region she said she worries if “somebody from my family dies, I will learn about it from Facebook.”

An American nurse who was visiting her family in the border town of Rama estimated looting Eritrean soldiers had left 1,000 dead.

She was able to fly out of the country and return to her home in Colorado.

If the fighting doesn’t end soon, she told the AP, “we’ll be left without families.”

When black lives don’t seem to matter

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The Spectator | A man is filmed dying under a policeman’s knee in Minneapolis. Riots break out, statues are toppled and the Western world erupts with civil unrest. More than 50,000 people are massacred, tortured and raped, leaving orphaned children to forage for food and find their drinking water in puddles. Some of it is caught on camera. Nobody turns a hair.

In this social media age, activists tend to focus with great intensity on a narrow, politically-approved range of issues. Israel-Palestine, food banks, structural racism, unconscious bias, trans rights. You know the list. But fewer people seem to care about people being killed, mutilated and starved in Ethiopia.

In case you missed it, months of brutal fighting in the northern region of Tigray has left tens of thousands dead and many more malnourished, with almost five million people cut off from aid supplies. In recent weeks, videos of brutal executions of civilians in rural communities have emerged. Due to a media blackout by the Ethiopian government, they cannot be verified and must be taken as such. But they do seem to match the facts.

Part of the problem is that NGOs and journalists are largely being barred from the area. There have been some eyewitnesses, however. Ato Abera Tola, the Ethiopian Red Cross president, who recently visited the squalid displacement camps in the northern town of Shire, warned that tens of thousands would perish from starvation within eight weeks. Women and children, he said, were ‘all emaciated…their skin is really on their bones’.

Those who made it to the camps were the lucky ones, he suggested. In rural areas, away from the camps, people are suffering unimaginably. ‘We have to get prepared for the worst, is what I’m saying,’ Abera said. Further east, in an act of ‘systematic aggression to health facilities’ in the regional capital of Mekele, hospitals have been looted, leaving them with no medicines or essential supplies. Basic vaccines have expired, and HIV drugs have run out.

‘I have never seen a place (like it) where a simple antibiotic is not present,’ Francesco Rocca, president of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, said. ‘This is unacceptable. There is a high risk of an outbreak of cholera or other diseases.’

The catastrophe is rooted in Ethiopian political history. The richness of the country stems from its diversity of culture and civilisation (it is home to one of the world’s oldest forms of Christianity). The state is a federation of ten different ethnic and linguistic regions.

Prime minister Abiy Ahmed has tried to enforce a pan-Ethiopian, nationalist agenda, aiming to unify the ethnic factions under a single banner. This has butted against the pride of minorities. In September, under pressure of Covid, there was a disputed election in the fiercely independent Tigray region. Ahmed – who, ironically enough, won a Nobel Peace Prize two years ago – sent federal forces in, sparking conflict with the Tigray People’s Liberation Front. Eritrean troops weighed in behind him.

‘The fighting made people want retribution for old grievances,’ Ahmed Soliman, an Africa expert at Chatham House, told me. ‘On the Eritrean border in particular, there has been conflict between communities on either side.’

As the unrest spread, local fighters saw themselves as battling to correct historic wrongs. There was looting in the towns. Numerous lives were lost to missiles, rockets and bombs from Chinese-made drones, and there were accounts of mass executions of civilians, some conducted with knives and machetes. After Rwanda, everyone vowed never again. How’s that going?

Where were the petitions? Where were the street protests? Where were the security council resolutions, the outrage, the international solidarity? The African Union sent three former presidents to Addis Ababa in an attempt at mediation. It flopped. The UN and EU struggled to get to grips with the crisis. Dominic Raab, the foreign secretary, made a half-hearted visit in January. The NGOs were in despair. But overall, the level of urgency does not seem commensurate to the horrors. And that is bound up with public opinion.

The hard fact is that the hellish suffering of millions of Ethiopians has failed to move Western hearts and minds. This may be depressing, but it is not entirely surprising. I remember, for instance, waiting grimly for news outside the morgue in Colombo while covering the horrific Easter bombings in Sri Lanka for the British press a couple of years ago. The question from editors wasn’t about the number of victims. The question was: ‘How many Brits?’.

Some argue that by covering stories the way it does, the media shapes its audience’s priorities, rather than the other way round. There may be some truth in this. More often, however, the reader is master and the hack must jump to his bell.

Human nature is not always a pretty thing. A wealth of psychological research has shown that people instinctively feel empathy and affection for those similar to themselves. That informs what they want to read and watch, which in turn drives the ugly side of our trade, pithily expressed by the late American foreign correspondent Edward Behr: ‘Anyone here been raped and speaks English?’

Making people care about a story is about making it relevant to them. And – as appalling as it is – one man who died at the hands of a cop in Minneapolis holds more emotional currency for many people than piles of corpses surrounded by unbearable tragedy on the other side of the world.

So much for the media. But what about the international community? Last year, the United Nations General Assembly condemned Israel 17 times. By comparison, it issued just six critical resolutions for the rest of the world combined, from China to North Korea to Yemen (not to mention Ethiopia).

Imagine the outrage if the 50,000 dead Ethiopians had actually been Palestinian, and the aggressors Israeli troops. It would never happen, of course. But the street protests, the petitions, the Security Council resolutions, the diplomatic pressure, the social media campaigns would speak for themselves (not to mention the synagogues attacked in France). And Tigray? Tumbleweed.

Human nature may have its ugly side. But I’m an optimist. It is within our gift to care. If man is part angel and part ape, I’m with Disraeli: we can strive to be on the side of the angels, especially when it comes to the desperate people of Tigray. What stands in the way, however, is the noisy, virtue-signalling obsession with things like Israel, or unconscious bias, or misgendering, or mixed-sex lavatories, all given rocket boosters by social media.

And you thought that black lives mattered.

Ethiopia: Concern grows over health of jailed political leaders

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Al Jazeera | Several Ethiopian opposition figures charged with ‘terrorism’ last year began a hunger strike in late January,

Concerns are growing about the health of several imprisoned Ethiopian opposition figures who launched a hunger strike some two weeks ago, with protests erupting in Oromia to demand the release of some of the region’s most prominent political leaders.

Senior Oromo Federal Congress (OFC) members Bekele Gerba and Jawar Mohammed are among some 20 people facing charges ranging from “terrorism” to illegal possession of firearms in connection with the unrest that followed the murder of a popular Oromo musician last year.

Bekele, Jawar and others began the food strike in late January in response to reports of arrests and mistreatment of supporters and family members who attend their courthouse hearings, according to their legal team.

“Four of them have already collapsed and have been taken to hospital,” Ibsa Gemeda, one of the defendants’ lawyers, told Al Jazeera. “The others are unable to have conversations or move around. Some of them have serious underlying health issues and we are worried that this could result in their deaths.”

Jawar himself has been extremely weakened by the strike he launched on January 27 and has since developed unspecified kidney problems, according to his lawyer.

The Ethiopian Human Rights Commission (EHRC) last week said it had visited the defendants and confirmed they were on hunger strike.

“Very close supervision is required to prevent any grave threat to their health and life,” Daniel Bekele, EHRC chief commissioner, said in a statement, adding that “reasonably justified demands of the prisoners must be addressed”.

A court hearing was cancelled last week due to the defendants being too weak to attend. It came as the youth took to the streets of several cities including Ambo and Dire Dawa to protest against the continued detention of the Oromo leaders, with a number of injuries and at least one death reported.

“We are asking for the releases of our political leaders,” Yeroon Tolassa, a student activist who attended last week’s protests, told Al Jazeera from Ethiopia’s capital, Addis Ababa. “Our political leaders and activists are jailed in the thousands.”

It was on the back of popular uprisings that first ignited among the ethnic Oromo, who constitute about a third of Ethiopia’s 112 million people, that Abiy Ahmed ascended to the Ethiopian premiership in April 2018. Promising to rid the state of its repressive nature, Abiy – Ethiopia’s first Oromo prime minister – ordered the release of thousands of political prisoners, promised free and fair elections and later won the Nobel Peace Prize for his landmark restoration of ties with neighbouring Eritrea, with whom Ethiopia fought a bloody border war between 1998 and 2000.

But for many Oromos, the initial enthusiasm has all but dissipated. Abiy’s opponents accuse him of growing authoritarian tendencies, while rights groups have expressed serious concerns over the detention of dozens of opposition members and journalists and the shutdown of independent media outlets.

Jawar, a founder of the United States-based Oromia Media Network, was an ally of Abiy and played a key role in coordinating the protests that catapulted him to power, before becoming a public critic of his administration. He and the others on hunger strike are accused of inciting the wave of violence that followed the June 29, 2020 murder of beloved singer-songwriter Hachalu Hundessa and left hundreds dead.

In August, a month before charges were announced, Human Rights Watch said the detentions and investigations were marred “by serious due process violations” while several months and multiple court hearings later, prosecutors have yet to provide evidence linking the defendants to the alleged crimes.

“The charges against them are politically motivated,” said Ibsa. “The case is motivated by the government’s desire to remove Jawar and others from the political realm, and muzzle opposition in the Oromia state.”

Government officials have previously dismissed such claims, while authorities maintain the evidence will be presented in due time.

“Criminal charges won’t be issued without evidence proving involving in a crime,” Awel Sultan, communications head at the Ethiopian attorney general’s office, told Al Jazeera. “Prosecutors aren’t to speak of the evidence while the court entertains the case. When the court begins hearing witnesses, you’ll begin to understand the nature of the evidence implicating them.”

Highly anticipated general elections scheduled for last year have been postponed until June 2021 because of the coronavirus pandemic.

The OFC wields considerable influence across Oromia and was expected to provide Abiy’s governing Prosperity Party with its stiffest challenge at the polls.

Free elections were long portrayed as the end goal of a government that had promised structural changes that would widen the political space. After the uprisings of 2015-16 eventually led former Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn to resign in February 2018, Abiy sealed the position on an interim basis, promising to oversee the transition to an all-encompassing democracy.

Three years later, there are fears the upcoming polls would mirror those of the past quarter-century, none of which was deemed free and fair by international standards. Over the course of last year, there have been reports of mass arrests of opposition party supporters, while parties have also been prohibited from holding rallies. In addition to key candidates being jailed, analysts say the fact that elections are not expected to be held in the war-hit Tigray region because of security fears, fuels legitimacy doubts.

“The systemic shuttering of the political opposition by arresting candidates, supporters and prohibiting rallies, shows us that the conditions for free and fair democratic elections have not been met,” Awol Allo, lecturer in law at Keele University in the United Kingdom, told Al Jazeera. “The ruling party knows that its ideology doesn’t appeal to the Oromo masses. The only way it could secure victory at the polls would be by eliminating any formidable opposition presence.”

The country’s National Electoral Board has acknowledged the issue of jailed politicians, but the board’s Chairwoman Birtukan Mideksa recently hinted that it would not be able to intervene on behalf of the jailed hunger strikers.

“We are aware that political candidates have been arrested. We’ve been able to succeed in convincing authorities to free some of them,” Birtukan said at a virtual Q&A session with social media users last week. “But we have mandate limitations. We cannot intervene on behalf of candidates accused of murder, inciting violence and whose cases are in the courts.”

With next court appearances scheduled for March 1, barring additional delays, the case has taken a toll on family members of the detainees, including Arfasse Gemeda, wife of Jawar and a human rights advocate.

“It’s been very difficult being physically far away,” she told Al Jazeera from the US, where she resides. “Especially during this hunger strike. As the days go on, I’m afraid of what I’m going to hear when I answer the phone or check Facebook. It’s a constant state of trauma,” she added.

“Although we are not physically in jail, our minds are.”