Mohammed Awad: April 08, 2013
ADDIS ABABA: Anger is rising once again towards the government from journalists and activists who are demanding answers over the continued detention of journalist and blogger Eskinder Naga and opposition leader Andualem Arage. Both figures were jailed last year after being charged with terrorism-related accusations.
Activists and journalists alike have told Bikyanews.com that these charges are “trumped up” and an effort to silence the opposition and free press in the East Africa country.
One editor at a local newspaper told Bikyanews.com that he believes the future of Ethiopia’s media “hinges on the outcome of this trial.
“We are all watching this very closely and it is unfortunate how the government is playing with peoples’ lives and the media in this regard. We want an end to the attacks on media workers simply doing their jobs,” he said, asking that his name not be revealed due to the sensitivity of the situation.
Eskinder and Andualem were among 24 people jailed in July 2012.
Activist and university student Hassan M. told Bikyanews.com that “we will organize protests if we have to in order to force the government to free innocent people from wrongful detention. We are not scared any longer.”
The United Nations has even chimed in, calling earlier this month for the release of Naga.
Freedom Now, the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention found the Government of Ethiopia’s continued detention of independent Ethiopian journalist and blogger Eskinder Naga a violation of international law. The panel of five independent experts from four continents held that the government violated Mr. Naga’s rights to free expression and due process. The UN Working Group called for his immediate release.
Naga is serving an 18-year prison sentence on terror and treason charges in response to his online articles and public speeches about the Arab Spring and the possible impact of such movements on the political situation in Ethiopia. Arrested in September 2011, Mr. Naga was held without charge or access to an attorney for nearly two months before authorities charged him under Ethiopia’s widely criticized anti-terror laws. This is the eighth time during his 20-year career as an independent journalist and publisher that the Ethiopian government has detained Mr. Naga. His appeal has been repeatedly postponed, most recently on March 27, 2013.
In the attached opinion, released in conjunction with an op-ed by the renowned Ethiopian opposition leader and former prisoner of conscience Birtukan Mideksa, the UN Working Group found that the application of overly broad anti-terror laws against Mr. Naga constituted an “unjustified restriction” on his right to freedom of expression. The UN Working Group’s opinion also recognized “several breaches of Mr. Naga’s fair trial rights,” further rendering his continued detention arbitrary under international law.
“The Ethiopian government cannot continue to use anti-terrorism legislation to muzzle the work of independent journalists, even when it does not like what is being reported,” said Freedom Now Executive Director Maran Turner. “The targeting of journalists by resorting to overly broad anti-terror laws, just like the use of anti-state charges in the pre-9/11 era, is a violation of the internationally protected right to free expression and undermines international efforts to address real security threats.”
Freedom Now represents Mr. Naga as his international pro bono counsel.
BN
Tuesday, April 9, 2013
Ethiopia: Bereket Simeon’s mother lavish funeral
The Horn Times Newsletter April 8, 2013
by Getahune Bekele, South Africa Demeke Mekonen stole the show at the lavish state funeral accorded to Bereket’s Mum *Is he eying the PM’s post?
by Getahune Bekele, South Africa Demeke Mekonen stole the show at the lavish state funeral accorded to Bereket’s Mum *Is he eying the PM’s post?
One of the main collaborators and loyal disciples of the genocidal minority Tigre Junta, Ethiopia’s Deputy Prime minister Demeke Mekonen was among thousands of mourners descended on the northern historic city of Gonder for the lavish funeral of top TPLF warlord and undisputed king maker Bereket Simeon’s late mother.
The old lady, said to be in her late 80s died in Bereket’s mansion next to Tewodros square in Addis Ababa on March28 2013, after long battle with cancer.
Appreciated for her blandishments and duality, She was described by legions of Tigre warlords as “lioness” who fearlessly spied for the two main rebel groups, Tigre People Liberation Front (TPLF) and Eritrean People Liberation Front (Shabia) in the 80s and 90s until the Durg regime succumbed in May 1991.
Hence she was accorded state funeral which angered and irritated the residents of Gonder city, further exasperating the growing resentment towards the ruling Tigre gang.
But the most inauspicious moment occurred Monday morning before the funeral procession began, when a federal police band attempted to march through the streets of the city playing the so- called liberation songs such as “Tigrai Adi Weyanay”, Tigrai land of bandits, a song regarded as profane and ethnocentric by Ethiopians.
Sensing trouble as angry crowd began to assemble the band was hurriedly removed from the streets.
Moreover, according to eye witnesses from Gonder, the city was completely shut down from Saturday until late Monday where a detachment of the TPLF army from the Tigre town of Adigrat and the federal police took control of every intersection and key installations including strategic surrounding hills and villages.
The road from the city center leading up to the Gonder St Gabriel Orthodox Church was also completely cordoned off to insure the safety of the grieving warlords.
Among the mourners were Tigrai republic God mother Azeb Mesfin, Tigrai republic’s multi-million Dollar brewery Raya beer co-owner Gen Tsadkan Gebretinsay and his business partner former TPLF spin doctor Salome Taddese, the retard Tigre warlord Sibehat Nega, feared Tigrai republic president Abby Woldu, former Marxist Leninist League Tigrai political commissar Tagay Tekestebirhan, today known as his Holiness Abune Samuel, Tigrai republic Mufti Elias Redman and Tigrai high priest, pastor Daniel Gebresilassie.
Warlord turned citizen journalist and owner of Reporter newspaper Amare Aregawi was also there to mourn the passing of his boss’s mother.
As it is the norm in the world’s unofficial apartheid state, non-Tigre mourners were kept away from the elite by security officers in plain clothing.
However, it was the performance of Deputy PM Demeke Mekonen that caused beards to wag and jaws to drop.
Moving around the TPLF flag draped coffin in labored manner, gliding backwards and forwards like a moonwalker, Demeke lamented the death of the woman he barely knew in traditional Amharic mourning poems using a strangely sonorous voice.
Although some mourners gave a smirk, according to our reliable sources, others were spellbound by Deputy Prime Minister Demeke Mekonen’s wailing skills and sheer display of loyalty, whispering ‘is he eying the post of the Prime Minister?’
“Look, all non-Tigres who were given key positions in the past had to use TPLF functions such as this to show their loyalty- Demeke was simply following suit. But am not so sure how that exaggerated false sorrow is going to lacerate the cold hearts the Tigre coterie and propel him to new heights. I don’t see him gaining any kudos.” A former non-Tigre TPLF politician who attended the funeral told the Horn Times magazine from Addis Ababa.
In additional news, after the funeral at St Gabriel church, mourners were treated to scrumptious after tears provided by the dream liner owner captain Mulatu where liquor was made available with gay abandon.
Demeke Mekonen
Appreciated for her blandishments and duality, She was described by legions of Tigre warlords as “lioness” who fearlessly spied for the two main rebel groups, Tigre People Liberation Front (TPLF) and Eritrean People Liberation Front (Shabia) in the 80s and 90s until the Durg regime succumbed in May 1991.
Hence she was accorded state funeral which angered and irritated the residents of Gonder city, further exasperating the growing resentment towards the ruling Tigre gang.
But the most inauspicious moment occurred Monday morning before the funeral procession began, when a federal police band attempted to march through the streets of the city playing the so- called liberation songs such as “Tigrai Adi Weyanay”, Tigrai land of bandits, a song regarded as profane and ethnocentric by Ethiopians.
Sensing trouble as angry crowd began to assemble the band was hurriedly removed from the streets.
Moreover, according to eye witnesses from Gonder, the city was completely shut down from Saturday until late Monday where a detachment of the TPLF army from the Tigre town of Adigrat and the federal police took control of every intersection and key installations including strategic surrounding hills and villages.
The road from the city center leading up to the Gonder St Gabriel Orthodox Church was also completely cordoned off to insure the safety of the grieving warlords.
Among the mourners were Tigrai republic God mother Azeb Mesfin, Tigrai republic’s multi-million Dollar brewery Raya beer co-owner Gen Tsadkan Gebretinsay and his business partner former TPLF spin doctor Salome Taddese, the retard Tigre warlord Sibehat Nega, feared Tigrai republic president Abby Woldu, former Marxist Leninist League Tigrai political commissar Tagay Tekestebirhan, today known as his Holiness Abune Samuel, Tigrai republic Mufti Elias Redman and Tigrai high priest, pastor Daniel Gebresilassie.
Warlord turned citizen journalist and owner of Reporter newspaper Amare Aregawi was also there to mourn the passing of his boss’s mother.
As it is the norm in the world’s unofficial apartheid state, non-Tigre mourners were kept away from the elite by security officers in plain clothing.
However, it was the performance of Deputy PM Demeke Mekonen that caused beards to wag and jaws to drop.
Moving around the TPLF flag draped coffin in labored manner, gliding backwards and forwards like a moonwalker, Demeke lamented the death of the woman he barely knew in traditional Amharic mourning poems using a strangely sonorous voice.
Although some mourners gave a smirk, according to our reliable sources, others were spellbound by Deputy Prime Minister Demeke Mekonen’s wailing skills and sheer display of loyalty, whispering ‘is he eying the post of the Prime Minister?’
“Look, all non-Tigres who were given key positions in the past had to use TPLF functions such as this to show their loyalty- Demeke was simply following suit. But am not so sure how that exaggerated false sorrow is going to lacerate the cold hearts the Tigre coterie and propel him to new heights. I don’t see him gaining any kudos.” A former non-Tigre TPLF politician who attended the funeral told the Horn Times magazine from Addis Ababa.
In additional news, after the funeral at St Gabriel church, mourners were treated to scrumptious after tears provided by the dream liner owner captain Mulatu where liquor was made available with gay abandon.
Request for an immediate investigation in to the forced eviction of Amharas
Ethiopian People’s Congress for United Struggle (Shengo)
To Navanethem Pillay – Chair, Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) Request for an immediate investigation in to the forced eviction of Amharas from Western and Southern Ethiopia.
Recent developments in Ethiopia indicate that thousands of ethnic Amharas have been forcefully evicted from the Benshangul Region in Western Ethiopia. Overnight, masses of unassuming people including vulnerable women and children have been uprooted and forced to leave their livelihood in the most callous circumstances. This forced eviction was confirmed by credible international news
agencies including the Voice of America.
This is not the first time that such forced and ethnic based eviction was carried out targeting the Amharas in Ethiopia. Last year thousands were also evicted from Maji Guraferda a location in Southern Ethiopia in a similar action taken by the local authorities. According to a leaked memo the horrendous ethnic based forced eviction was ordered by the president of the southern region Mr Shigute.
Shengo is appalled by such inhuman and illegal act perpetuated with the full knowledge of the ruling EPRDF. To date the government has taken no steps to stop such ethnic based forced eviction. Shengo is very concerned that whatever the pretext, this current eviction is part of a systemic policy of “ethnic cleansing regions in Ethiopia”.
We contend that this action could constitute crime against humanity as defined by the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.
As such, we urge your office to give the situation a very urgent and immediate attention investigate and avert further human tragedy.
Sincerely yours;
Ermias Alemu, (Dr)
Chairman
Cc Genocide watch
Human Rights Watch
Amnesty International
AU
To Navanethem Pillay – Chair, Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) Request for an immediate investigation in to the forced eviction of Amharas from Western and Southern Ethiopia.
Recent developments in Ethiopia indicate that thousands of ethnic Amharas have been forcefully evicted from the Benshangul Region in Western Ethiopia. Overnight, masses of unassuming people including vulnerable women and children have been uprooted and forced to leave their livelihood in the most callous circumstances. This forced eviction was confirmed by credible international newsagencies including the Voice of America.
This is not the first time that such forced and ethnic based eviction was carried out targeting the Amharas in Ethiopia. Last year thousands were also evicted from Maji Guraferda a location in Southern Ethiopia in a similar action taken by the local authorities. According to a leaked memo the horrendous ethnic based forced eviction was ordered by the president of the southern region Mr Shigute.
Shengo is appalled by such inhuman and illegal act perpetuated with the full knowledge of the ruling EPRDF. To date the government has taken no steps to stop such ethnic based forced eviction. Shengo is very concerned that whatever the pretext, this current eviction is part of a systemic policy of “ethnic cleansing regions in Ethiopia”.
We contend that this action could constitute crime against humanity as defined by the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.
As such, we urge your office to give the situation a very urgent and immediate attention investigate and avert further human tragedy.
Sincerely yours;
Ermias Alemu, (Dr)
Chairman
Cc Genocide watch
Human Rights Watch
Amnesty International
AU
World Bank Must End its Support for Human Rights Abuses in Ethiopia
by David Pred
A multi-billion dollar aid program administered by the World Bank is underwriting systematic human rights abuses in
Ethiopia. Last September, Ethiopian victims submitted a complaint about the program to the World Bank Inspection Panel, which is tasked with investigating whether or not the Bank complies with its own policies to prevent social and environmental harm. A meeting of the Bank’s board of directors to discuss the Panel’s preliminary findings was postponed on March 19th due to objections from the Ethiopian government.
Ethiopia is one the largest aid recipients in the world, receiving approximately US$3 billion annually from external donors. The largest aid program, financed by the World Bank, the UK, the European Commission and other Western governments, is called Promotion of Basic Services (PBS). It aims to expand access to services in five sectors: education, health, agriculture, water supply and sanitation, and rural roads. The PBS program objectives are indisputably laudable and aim to meet a number of dire needs of the Ethiopian population. There is evidence, however, that it is contributing to a government campaign to forcibly resettle an estimated 1.5 million people.
In the lowland region of Gambella, the government’s principle means of delivering basic services is through the implementation of the “Villagization Program”. The government claims that “villagization” is a voluntary process, which aims to “bring socioeconomic and cultural transformation of the people” through the resettlement of “scattered” families into new villages. The services and facilities supported by PBS are precisely the services and facilities that are supposed to be provided at new settlement sites under the Villagization Program.
However, Gambellans, now amassing in refugee camps in Kenya and South Sudan, report that the program has been far from voluntary. When I visited the camps last fall, the refugees reported a process involving intimidation, beatings, arbitrary arrest and detention, torture in military custody and extra-judicial killing. Dispossessed of their fertile ancestral lands and displaced from their livelihoods, Gambella’s indigenous communities have been forced into villages with few of the promised basic services and little access to food or land suitable for farming. Meanwhile, many of the areas from which people have been forcibly removed have been awarded to domestic and foreign investors for large-scale agro-industrial plantations.
In September, Human Rights Watch and my organization, Inclusive Development International, arranged a meeting with the World Bank and five newly arrived refugees in Nairobi. One by one, they gave chilling testimony of the abuses that they and their families have experienced under the Villagization Program. Their testimony corroborated detailed reports about the program by Human Rights Watch and the Oakland Institute.
Yet, despite these credible reports and first-hand accounts that Bank staff heard in Nairobi, the Bank has continued to deny the forcible nature of villagization. The Bank also insists that its project is not linked to the Villagization Program, despite its acknowledgement that it finances the salaries of public servants who are tasked with implementing villagization. These arguments are wholly disingenuous.
Donors must accept responsibility for human rights abuses they help make possible and do everything in their power to prevent them. There are ways the Bank can support critical investments in human development while ensuring that it is not underwriting human rights violations. It could, for example, require that the Villagization Program comply with its safeguard policy on resettlement as a condition of its $600 million concessional loan for the latest phase of PBS. If this policy were applied, the government would have to ensure, and the Bank would have to verify, that resettlement is truly voluntary and that the program improves people’s lives.
Yet the Bank and bi-lateral donors have instead chosen a strategy of denial. They have invested too much for too long in Ethiopia to admit that things have gone horribly wrong, and they are too worried about upsetting a critical military ally in a volatile part of the world to start attaching human rights conditions to aid packages.
The Mursi tribe in Mago national park, Ethiopia, 2011. Photograph: Patricia White/Alamy
Ethiopia is one the largest aid recipients in the world, receiving approximately US$3 billion annually from external donors. The largest aid program, financed by the World Bank, the UK, the European Commission and other Western governments, is called Promotion of Basic Services (PBS). It aims to expand access to services in five sectors: education, health, agriculture, water supply and sanitation, and rural roads. The PBS program objectives are indisputably laudable and aim to meet a number of dire needs of the Ethiopian population. There is evidence, however, that it is contributing to a government campaign to forcibly resettle an estimated 1.5 million people.
In the lowland region of Gambella, the government’s principle means of delivering basic services is through the implementation of the “Villagization Program”. The government claims that “villagization” is a voluntary process, which aims to “bring socioeconomic and cultural transformation of the people” through the resettlement of “scattered” families into new villages. The services and facilities supported by PBS are precisely the services and facilities that are supposed to be provided at new settlement sites under the Villagization Program.
However, Gambellans, now amassing in refugee camps in Kenya and South Sudan, report that the program has been far from voluntary. When I visited the camps last fall, the refugees reported a process involving intimidation, beatings, arbitrary arrest and detention, torture in military custody and extra-judicial killing. Dispossessed of their fertile ancestral lands and displaced from their livelihoods, Gambella’s indigenous communities have been forced into villages with few of the promised basic services and little access to food or land suitable for farming. Meanwhile, many of the areas from which people have been forcibly removed have been awarded to domestic and foreign investors for large-scale agro-industrial plantations.
In September, Human Rights Watch and my organization, Inclusive Development International, arranged a meeting with the World Bank and five newly arrived refugees in Nairobi. One by one, they gave chilling testimony of the abuses that they and their families have experienced under the Villagization Program. Their testimony corroborated detailed reports about the program by Human Rights Watch and the Oakland Institute.
Yet, despite these credible reports and first-hand accounts that Bank staff heard in Nairobi, the Bank has continued to deny the forcible nature of villagization. The Bank also insists that its project is not linked to the Villagization Program, despite its acknowledgement that it finances the salaries of public servants who are tasked with implementing villagization. These arguments are wholly disingenuous.
Donors must accept responsibility for human rights abuses they help make possible and do everything in their power to prevent them. There are ways the Bank can support critical investments in human development while ensuring that it is not underwriting human rights violations. It could, for example, require that the Villagization Program comply with its safeguard policy on resettlement as a condition of its $600 million concessional loan for the latest phase of PBS. If this policy were applied, the government would have to ensure, and the Bank would have to verify, that resettlement is truly voluntary and that the program improves people’s lives.
Yet the Bank and bi-lateral donors have instead chosen a strategy of denial. They have invested too much for too long in Ethiopia to admit that things have gone horribly wrong, and they are too worried about upsetting a critical military ally in a volatile part of the world to start attaching human rights conditions to aid packages.
World Bank Must End its Support for Human Rights Abuses in Ethiopia
by David Pred
A multi-billion dollar aid program administered by the World Bank is underwriting systematic human rights abuses in
Ethiopia. Last September, Ethiopian victims submitted a complaint about the program to the World Bank Inspection Panel, which is tasked with investigating whether or not the Bank complies with its own policies to prevent social and environmental harm. A meeting of the Bank’s board of directors to discuss the Panel’s preliminary findings was postponed on March 19th due to objections from the Ethiopian government.
Ethiopia is one the largest aid recipients in the world, receiving approximately US$3 billion annually from external donors. The largest aid program, financed by the World Bank, the UK, the European Commission and other Western governments, is called Promotion of Basic Services (PBS). It aims to expand access to services in five sectors: education, health, agriculture, water supply and sanitation, and rural roads. The PBS program objectives are indisputably laudable and aim to meet a number of dire needs of the Ethiopian population. There is evidence, however, that it is contributing to a government campaign to forcibly resettle an estimated 1.5 million people.
In the lowland region of Gambella, the government’s principle means of delivering basic services is through the implementation of the “Villagization Program”. The government claims that “villagization” is a voluntary process, which aims to “bring socioeconomic and cultural transformation of the people” through the resettlement of “scattered” families into new villages. The services and facilities supported by PBS are precisely the services and facilities that are supposed to be provided at new settlement sites under the Villagization Program.
However, Gambellans, now amassing in refugee camps in Kenya and South Sudan, report that the program has been far from voluntary. When I visited the camps last fall, the refugees reported a process involving intimidation, beatings, arbitrary arrest and detention, torture in military custody and extra-judicial killing. Dispossessed of their fertile ancestral lands and displaced from their livelihoods, Gambella’s indigenous communities have been forced into villages with few of the promised basic services and little access to food or land suitable for farming. Meanwhile, many of the areas from which people have been forcibly removed have been awarded to domestic and foreign investors for large-scale agro-industrial plantations.
In September, Human Rights Watch and my organization, Inclusive Development International, arranged a meeting with the World Bank and five newly arrived refugees in Nairobi. One by one, they gave chilling testimony of the abuses that they and their families have experienced under the Villagization Program. Their testimony corroborated detailed reports about the program by Human Rights Watch and the Oakland Institute.
Yet, despite these credible reports and first-hand accounts that Bank staff heard in Nairobi, the Bank has continued to deny the forcible nature of villagization. The Bank also insists that its project is not linked to the Villagization Program, despite its acknowledgement that it finances the salaries of public servants who are tasked with implementing villagization. These arguments are wholly disingenuous.
Donors must accept responsibility for human rights abuses they help make possible and do everything in their power to prevent them. There are ways the Bank can support critical investments in human development while ensuring that it is not underwriting human rights violations. It could, for example, require that the Villagization Program comply with its safeguard policy on resettlement as a condition of its $600 million concessional loan for the latest phase of PBS. If this policy were applied, the government would have to ensure, and the Bank would have to verify, that resettlement is truly voluntary and that the program improves people’s lives.
Yet the Bank and bi-lateral donors have instead chosen a strategy of denial. They have invested too much for too long in Ethiopia to admit that things have gone horribly wrong, and they are too worried about upsetting a critical military ally in a volatile part of the world to start attaching human rights conditions to aid packages.
The Mursi tribe in Mago national park, Ethiopia, 2011. Photograph: Patricia White/Alamy
Ethiopia is one the largest aid recipients in the world, receiving approximately US$3 billion annually from external donors. The largest aid program, financed by the World Bank, the UK, the European Commission and other Western governments, is called Promotion of Basic Services (PBS). It aims to expand access to services in five sectors: education, health, agriculture, water supply and sanitation, and rural roads. The PBS program objectives are indisputably laudable and aim to meet a number of dire needs of the Ethiopian population. There is evidence, however, that it is contributing to a government campaign to forcibly resettle an estimated 1.5 million people.
In the lowland region of Gambella, the government’s principle means of delivering basic services is through the implementation of the “Villagization Program”. The government claims that “villagization” is a voluntary process, which aims to “bring socioeconomic and cultural transformation of the people” through the resettlement of “scattered” families into new villages. The services and facilities supported by PBS are precisely the services and facilities that are supposed to be provided at new settlement sites under the Villagization Program.
However, Gambellans, now amassing in refugee camps in Kenya and South Sudan, report that the program has been far from voluntary. When I visited the camps last fall, the refugees reported a process involving intimidation, beatings, arbitrary arrest and detention, torture in military custody and extra-judicial killing. Dispossessed of their fertile ancestral lands and displaced from their livelihoods, Gambella’s indigenous communities have been forced into villages with few of the promised basic services and little access to food or land suitable for farming. Meanwhile, many of the areas from which people have been forcibly removed have been awarded to domestic and foreign investors for large-scale agro-industrial plantations.
In September, Human Rights Watch and my organization, Inclusive Development International, arranged a meeting with the World Bank and five newly arrived refugees in Nairobi. One by one, they gave chilling testimony of the abuses that they and their families have experienced under the Villagization Program. Their testimony corroborated detailed reports about the program by Human Rights Watch and the Oakland Institute.
Yet, despite these credible reports and first-hand accounts that Bank staff heard in Nairobi, the Bank has continued to deny the forcible nature of villagization. The Bank also insists that its project is not linked to the Villagization Program, despite its acknowledgement that it finances the salaries of public servants who are tasked with implementing villagization. These arguments are wholly disingenuous.
Donors must accept responsibility for human rights abuses they help make possible and do everything in their power to prevent them. There are ways the Bank can support critical investments in human development while ensuring that it is not underwriting human rights violations. It could, for example, require that the Villagization Program comply with its safeguard policy on resettlement as a condition of its $600 million concessional loan for the latest phase of PBS. If this policy were applied, the government would have to ensure, and the Bank would have to verify, that resettlement is truly voluntary and that the program improves people’s lives.
Yet the Bank and bi-lateral donors have instead chosen a strategy of denial. They have invested too much for too long in Ethiopia to admit that things have gone horribly wrong, and they are too worried about upsetting a critical military ally in a volatile part of the world to start attaching human rights conditions to aid packages.
Ethiopian orphanage used ‘child harvesters’ to find children
Adoptions from the the Enat Alem orphanage in Ethiopia were recently halted by the social and integration minister, Karen Hækkerup (Socialdemokraterne), based on reports of children being deprived of food, basic care and medical treatment at the facility.
Now new reports have surfaced that the home used ‘child harvesters’ to lure local families into putting their children up for adoption at Enat Alem in violation of the Hague Conventions.
A local man, Gimma Kebele, told the DR News programme ’21 Søndag’ that he worked at Enat Alem and that, along with his duties as a night watchman, he went around local villages visiting families in an attempt to persuade them to put their children up for adoption. Kebele says that he has been involved in 145 adoptions at Enat Alem.
According to local authorities, Kebele received a reward for collecting the children that was quite lucrative by Ethiopian standards. He was allegedly paid between 75 and 110 Danish kroner for each child he brought to the home. By comparison, his monthly salary as a guard at the orphanage was about 150 kroner.
A local official said that many parents who were seeking a chance at a better life for their children never fully understood that they would most likely never see them again after agreeing to an adoption through Enat Alem.
“They did not know what the separation meant because they were pressured and tricked and promised many things,” the official told ’21 Søndag’. Other sources have said that biological parents were told that their children would receive excellent educations and then be sent back to Ethiopia to help their biological families.
“I am completely shaken,” Steen Andersen, the general secretary of UNICEF Denmark, told ’21 Søndag’. “This is unethical and illegal. These children are not orphans, and many of these women belive that their children are going on an extended holiday in Denmark.”
Records show that 21 children have come to Denmark from Enat Alem via DanAdopt since 2009. The agency said that it had no knowledge that the the orphanage used child harvesters. This past weekend, DanAdopt sent a letter to the parents on the waiting list for Ethiopian children in Denmark, saying that the moratorium on adoptions from Ethiopia was “temporary”. The letter goes on to say that there have been no problems with Danish adoptions from Ethiopia since 2009 and that they had not been allowed to see ’21 Søndag’ before it was aired in order to verify its claims.
Kebele denied that he was paid to find children for adoption and said that he was simply doing outreach work in order to assist poor families. Soliciting children for adoption for profit is punishable by imprisonment in Ethiopia.
Source: The Copenhagen Post
This woman said she had no idea her children would never return when she allowed them to be adopted in Denmark (Screen Shot: DR/ 21 Søndag)
A local man, Gimma Kebele, told the DR News programme ’21 Søndag’ that he worked at Enat Alem and that, along with his duties as a night watchman, he went around local villages visiting families in an attempt to persuade them to put their children up for adoption. Kebele says that he has been involved in 145 adoptions at Enat Alem.
According to local authorities, Kebele received a reward for collecting the children that was quite lucrative by Ethiopian standards. He was allegedly paid between 75 and 110 Danish kroner for each child he brought to the home. By comparison, his monthly salary as a guard at the orphanage was about 150 kroner.
A local official said that many parents who were seeking a chance at a better life for their children never fully understood that they would most likely never see them again after agreeing to an adoption through Enat Alem.
“They did not know what the separation meant because they were pressured and tricked and promised many things,” the official told ’21 Søndag’. Other sources have said that biological parents were told that their children would receive excellent educations and then be sent back to Ethiopia to help their biological families.
“I am completely shaken,” Steen Andersen, the general secretary of UNICEF Denmark, told ’21 Søndag’. “This is unethical and illegal. These children are not orphans, and many of these women belive that their children are going on an extended holiday in Denmark.”
Records show that 21 children have come to Denmark from Enat Alem via DanAdopt since 2009. The agency said that it had no knowledge that the the orphanage used child harvesters. This past weekend, DanAdopt sent a letter to the parents on the waiting list for Ethiopian children in Denmark, saying that the moratorium on adoptions from Ethiopia was “temporary”. The letter goes on to say that there have been no problems with Danish adoptions from Ethiopia since 2009 and that they had not been allowed to see ’21 Søndag’ before it was aired in order to verify its claims.
Kebele denied that he was paid to find children for adoption and said that he was simply doing outreach work in order to assist poor families. Soliciting children for adoption for profit is punishable by imprisonment in Ethiopia.
Source: The Copenhagen Post
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