SMNE’s Open Letter to EITI & PWYP

An Open Letter to African Steering Committee Members for Publish What You Pay (PWYP) & Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) Board Members from PWYP

You can also read the open letter in PDF

Dear Ali Idrissa, Jean-Claude Katende and Faith Nwadishi, and other members of the EITI Board:

We in the Solidarity Movement for a New Ethiopia (SMNE) are contacting you in regards to the upcoming Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) board review concerning Ethiopia’s reapplication for membership in the EITI. The outcome of your decision related to this case will either help or hinder Ethiopians both now and in the future so it is critically important that you hear a representative voice from the people.

For your information, the SMNE, of which I am the executive director, is a non-political and non-violent social justice movement of diverse people that advocates for freedom, justice, good governance and upholding the civil, human and economic rights of the people of Ethiopia, without regard to ethnicity, religion, political affiliation or other differences. The SMNE believes a more open, transparent and competitive market economy, supported by viable institutions and reasonable protections, which provides equal opportunity, will result in greater prosperity to the people rather than keeping it in the hands of a few political elites as is the case today.

We also contend that the future wellbeing of our global society rests in the hands of those among us who can put “humanity before ethnicity,” religion or any other distinctions that divide and dehumanize other human beings from ourselves; inspiring us to care about these “others”; not only because of the intrinsic God-given value of each life, but also because “none of us is free until all are free.”

As you know, Ethiopia’s application for membership in 2010 was rejected based on its systemic repression of Ethiopian civil society; in particular, its implementation of a draconian law, the Charities and Societies Proclamation (CSO), which essentially eliminated Ethiopian civil society from functioning independently of government control. As of 2014, the situation has only worsened.

It is our understanding that each of you is a member of the African Steering Committee of Publish What You Pay (PWYP), an organization that was founded following the 40-year civil war in Angola, when the call for transparency—Publish What You Pay—was made in a report from Global Witness alleging that elites from the country had worked in secretive complicity with multi-national oil companies in the mismanagement and embezzlement of oil revenues. This is similar to what is going on today in Ethiopia.

It is also our understanding that you were appointed by the PWYP to assume the role asCivil Society Representatives on the EITI International Board 2013-2015.  We are aware of your mandated obligation to represent the interests of civil society on that board. Recently, it has come to our attention that while operating in that capacity, you have received a strongletter from the EITI chairperson, Clare Short, in support of Ethiopia’s admission to the EITI.(See a copy of that letter in the endnotes.)

That letter has been made public and we find it highly offensive, inaccurate and a blatant attempt to lobby other board members towards a pro-Ethiopian government position despite the fact that abundant evidence indicates that independent civil society cannot exist in Ethiopia.

Chairperson Short also attempts to discredit the entirety of the Ethiopian Diaspora, presuming to better know the state of civil society than do they. She also strongly opposes the inclusion of human rights violations in considering this case, discounting the seriousness of such by comparing widespread perpetration of crimes against humanity and other egregious human rights violations to removing protestors by force in her own country (the United Kingdom). In doing so, she is dismissing the seriousness and pervasiveness of those human rights crimes, ignoring the vast amount of documentation, and minimizing the personal experiences of refugees outside of Ethiopia and the close connections they maintain with family and communities on the ground that attest to the connection between the Government of Ethiopia’s (GOE) serial violation of human rights in Ethiopia and the exploitation of its natural resources.

She also appears to invalidate the many contributions of international advocates, calling them “campaigners” and seeing them as less relevant because they convey “north telling the south” dictates. At the same time, she is prescribing to you, as African members of the African Steering Committee of the PWYP and members of the EITI Board, as well as to Ethiopians within and outside of the country, her own “north to south” position. It also appears that she has directed a veiled threat that the failure of EITI to accept Ethiopia may have ramifications on the status of “Niger and the Congo B”, two of the countries two of you personally represent. This kind of approach by the chairperson appears to be intentionally intimidating and is very disturbing to those seeking a transparent and fair approach.

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