African Union: Is meeting the needs of ordinary Africans?

Addis Ababa, Aljazeera – The African Union headquarters complex in the capital Addis Ababa stands in stark contrast to its immediate surroundings.
The wide planetarium-like structure sitting comfortably attached to a $100m lightly glazed tower dominates the city’s skyline. Inside, the combined leadership of 54 nations gather in state of the art conference rooms to contemplate Africa’s future.
Outside the complex, taxi cabs jostle for parking space and pedestrians are questioned by security guards, while local residents navigate the grime and dust of urban life walking along narrow alleys.

The continental bloc might be celebrating 50 years on Saturday, but there is an unmistakable cynicism surrounding the nature and value of the union in meeting the needs of ordinary Africans.
The AU plans to host commemorative celebrations at a reported cost of $1.3m, despite ongoing conflicts and insecurity in five countries across the continent, including Sudan, the eastern DRC and Mali.
Disarray still reigns in Guinea-Bissau, the Central African Republic and Madagascar. Moreover, despite recent economic growth across the continent, living conditions remain abysmal for many average people, with the UN’s signature index suggesting that 24 of the 25 countries at the bottom of the human development index are African.
These types of statistics compel criticsto describe the AU as a talk shop, rudderless and crucially disconnected from African citizens like its predecessor, the Organisation of African Unity (OAU).
Change of focus
Joram Biswaro, Tanzania’s ambassador to Ethiopia, believes criticism of the AU is unfair and out of context. Despite its limitations as a continental bloc, the fact that Madagascar, CAR and Guinea-Bissau were banned from attending the summit for ongoing political irregularities signalled the AU was headed in the right direction, he said.
“Perhaps had it not been for this organisation, Africa might not have achieved what it has achieved … If you want to assess its performance, one should look at its charter,” Biswaro told Al Jazeera.
The original organisation, the OAU, built by 32 African nations originally on May 25, 1963, focused primarily on liberating countries on the continent from the grip of colonialism.
The OAU came under sever scrutiny for its inability to intervene in member states during times of strife, coups or government repression earning the name of “dictators’ club” for upholding the interests of member country’s leadership above all else.
But since the formation of the AU in 2002, with a renewed focus on solving conflicts, engineering socio-economic development and improving governance, hard questions are being asked over the political will of the AU to reignite the lost dream of pan-Africanism.
During the Arab Spring of 2011, the AU was an anonymous spectator as a revolutionary fervour that was born in North Africa spread across the Middle East. The AU appeared to be particularly hamstrung in its response to the armed revolt against Muammar Gaddafi in Libya.
“The crisis in Libya was a very difficult time for the AU’s Peace and Security Council to reach an agreement,” reminisced Yemane Nagish, a political analyst at The Reporter Newspaper, in Addis Ababa.
It is this type of accountability, transparency and political will that needs to improve, says Ashebir Woldegeois, the chairperson of the Health, Labour and Social Affairs of the AU’s Pan-African Parliament.
Accountability issues
With 60 percent of its annual budget reportedly funded by overseas donors, it remains unclear how much political clout and independence the African Union can wield in reality.
Solomon Dersso, senior researcher at the Institute of Security Studies (ISS), says he has no issue with African countries partnering with outside groups to solve problems. Difficulties on the continent need to be viewed in proper context, he said, as some problems are come from outside sources, rather than from within Africa.
“The idea is not that only Africans should do it; the idea is that Africans should be at the centre for the search of solutions,” he told Al Jazeera.
Other observers wonder if ordinary Africans are actually at the forefront of the AU’s concerns. With so many Africans living in politically repressive regimes, like Equatorial Guinea, Ethiopia and the Gambia with limitations on freedom of expression, and restrictions on opposition parties, the AU is not yet representative of the African people, critics say.
“Despite being home to several of the world’s worst performing countries in terms of respect for human rights, the region saw overall if uneven progress toward democratisation during the 1990s and the early 2000s,” Freedom House, a US think-tank, reported in regards to Sub-Saharan Africa.
While elections are being held regularly across the continent, these apparent gains towards a culture of democracy are sometimes little more than masterful con jobs.
Election issues
Votes are scheduled this year for fragile states like Zimbabwe and Madagascar, and scrutiny has fallen on the efforts of the African Union to be an honest broker for democracy. In the past, Human Rights Watch has slammed the AU as an organisation ostensibly created to support democracy and freedom but wary of grassroots social movements.
The idea is that Africans should be at the centre of the search for solutions
Solomon Dersso, senior researcher at the Institute of Security Studies
The AU, however, has not been aloof to the challenges posed by political repression on the continent. In 2007, the organisation adopted the Charter for Democracy, Elections and Governance to address a tendency towards authoritarian rule in some African countries.
Highlighting human rights, the rule of law, democratic elections and unconstitutional changes of government, the charter aims to “reinforce commitments to democracy, development and peace in Africa”. There certainly is no faulting its intention but critics say commitment to the Charter has been poor.
Woldegeois, the parliamentary member, said the situation has improved, despite set-backs. “We are getting there, but many opposition parties in Africa are still immature; many are not willing to work hard in the villages, build their constituencies.”
But other observers said the root problem of representation at the AU can be seen in the group’s founding constitution.
“Compared to the United Nations charter which starts off with ‘We the people of the United Nations, the AU constitution starts off with ‘We the heads of the state and government,” said Dersso, the researcher. “Make no mistake, this [the AU] is in many ways still a club of heads of state and government and not necessarily a body that truly represents the African people.”
Young and restless
Almost 65 per cent of Africans are below the age of 35, and many are uninterested in the traditional politics of patronage. The face of the continent has changed.
The new AU Commission Chairperson, Dr Nkhosozana Dlamini-Zuma, has vowed to frame the next five decades around the themes of African identity, integration, economic development and democratic governance, among others.
But without action, analysts warn the continual talk shops at summits can last only for so long.
“There is a great sense of empowerment on the part of the youth,” Dersso said. “If the actions of leaders are not in sync… [than] these types of governments have no future in Africa.”
As African leaders enjoy the pomp and ceremony in Addis Ababa this weekend, many outside its headquarters still believe the continental body is adrift from the aspirations of its people.

Kerry Promotes Human Rights During Africa Stop

VOA News

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, left, meets with Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, May 25, 2013.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry heads to Jordan Sunday for the World Economic Forum — the last stop on an Africa and Middle East tour that has focused on security and human rights.
Kerry spent Saturday in Ethiopia for a summit marking the 50th anniversary of the African Union. He also met with several regional leaders to express U.S. concerns over human rights and democracy.
The top U.S. diplomat urged Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan to ensure his forces respect the rights of civilians as they battle Boko Haram militants.
Kerry also told Sudanese Foreign Minister Ali Ahmed Karti that Sudan and South Sudan are in a “very delicate place right now” as they look to normalize relations and overcome lingering disputes.
The secretary of state also met with Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi, and warned him that he must make more economic and democratic reforms for U.S. aid to continue.
“One person’s atrocity does not excuse another’s. And revenge is not the motive. It’s good governance,” Kerry stressed. It’s ridding yourself of a terrorist organization so that you can establish a standard of law that people can respect. And that’s what needs to happen in Nigeria.”

Ethiopian Muslims Under Siege

 

Dawit Giorgis
24th May 2013 – FDD Policy Brief*

Ethiopian Muslims participated today in a massive nationwide demonstration against measures taken by the government in Addis Ababa to limit religious freedom. The protests took place everywhere across the country except the capital, where demonstrations are banned because it will host next week’s celebration of the 50^th anniversary of the African Union.

A crowd of protesters outside the Anawar mosque on July 15. Photo by our Observer, Aman.

Today’s protests are neither new nor surprising. Tens of thousands of Ethiopian Muslims have demonstrated across the country, each Friday over the last year, protesting the new government measures that have threatened their freedoms. Their demands are not to establish a shari’a-compliant polity. Rather, they seek a secular state according to the laws enshrined in the constitution.
Since this government came to power in 1990, it has sought to control its people by dividing them along ethnic and religious lines. More recently, it has singled out Muslims, alleging they are influenced by radical elements seeking to subvert the regime. In the name of security, the government has adopted various measures to stifle their freedoms by forcing them to submit to the religious leaders appointed by the government, as it did with the dominant Orthodox Church. Hundreds of Muslims have been arrested, imprisoned, or even tortured. In some cases, houses have been ransacked, and Qurans have been confiscated. The charges include terrorism and attempting to establish Sharia law.
The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) in November 2012 expressed that it was “deeply concerned about the increasing deterioration of religious freedoms for Muslims in Ethiopia.” USCIRF Commissioner Azizah al-Hibri warned of ongoing “attempt(s) by the Ethiopian government to crush opposition to its efforts to control the practice of religion by imposing on Ethiopian Muslims a specific interpretation of Islam.”
Human Rights Watch further reports that authorities, responding to the demonstrations each week, have arrested large numbers of protestors, many of whom remain in detention. Several reports suggest the use of excessive force by Ethiopian police. Journalists have largely been barred from reporting on these events; many have been arrested for their coverage of the unrest.
Fortunately, the Ethiopian government has been unsuccessful dividing the people. The strong historic relationship shared by the country’s Christians and Muslims has made it difficult for the government to generate animosity, or even mutual suspicion. But if the grievances of Muslims are not addressed, outside actors may seek to exploit this fertile ground. The threat of radicalization — even terrorism — could become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Prolonged civil strife could plunge this country’s population of 80 million into unprecedented instability.
*Dawit Giorgis, a former senior Ethiopian government official, is a visiting fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

UK foreign aid, the final insult: Ethiopian sues Britain after claiming our £1.3billion programme supports ‘Stalinist’ regime that sent him to world’s biggest refugee camp

 

• Four million people forced off their land by security forces while their homes and farms are sold to foreign investors
• ‘Mr O’ said by suing British Department for International Development he fights on behalf of Ethiopian people who are being relocated
• Questions raised about British role in atrocities as annual payouts continue
• When he refused to leave his land, he was taken to military barricks and tortured
• Refugee camp over Kenyan border overflowing with Ethiopians is now largest in the world

By IAN BIRRELL IN DADAAB, KENYA
Mail Online
It is hard to think of many more blessed spots on Earth than the Gambella region of Ethiopia, with its fertile soil, lush vegetation and flowing rivers – so different to the usual famine-struck images of barren terrain and starving infants we see from that country.
There are even rich seams of gold running under the verdant fields of fruit and vegetables, panned for centuries by the tribes that lived in the area.
As my bearded companion describes his homeland to me in his deep voice, he whips out his mobile phone to show me pictures that remind me of the more bucolic parts of Britain.

Dadaab refugee camp: Hundreds of thousands of refugees have fled over the Kenyan border for sanctuary. Mr O went to the camp, which is the world’s largest, after he was relocated to an army camp and beaten

‘We lived in a village alongside the river where you could grow anything – maize, sorghum, lemon, bananas, oranges, pineapple. We were so happy growing up there and living there in our village.’

Mr O: The identity of the man who is suing DFID cannot be revealed because of safety reasons

‘I wish I could take you to see my home,’ he adds. ‘It is so beautiful.’ Instead, this man is stuck in the living hell of the world’s largest refugee camp, forced to abandon his family when he fled in fear over the border to Kenya after vicious beatings and torture.
Yet he was lucky to escape with his life. Friends and relatives from his village of Pinykew and others nearby have been butchered, the women subjected to mass rape by gun-toting soldiers and gangs armed with machetes.
Now he is fighting back on behalf of his Anuak people, instructing lawyers to confront the paymasters of the repressive regime that ripped apart his life. Those paymasters are the British Government.
In a landmark case, he aims to issue proceedings against the Department for International Development (DFID), arguing its money supports a Stalin-style programme of brutal forced relocations driving large numbers of families from their traditional lands.
The London law firm he has instructed to look at launching the case, Leigh Day, says the aid breaches the department’s own human rights policies. In effect, the case challenges the way Britain hands aid to some of the world’s most despotic regimes.
In response, the Government must spend taxpayers’ money defending itself from charges it is destroying the lives of some of the world’s poorest people, rather than helping them.
If it loses, it might have to abandon key aid projects and pay compensation to thousands of exiled Ethiopians. This could cost millions of pounds.
The test case marks the culmination of long-held concerns over Ethiopia. It has become the biggest recipient of British aid, despite being an autocratic one-party state, run in similar style to the old Soviet Bloc countries.
Britain is giving £1.3 billion to Ethiopia over the course of the Coalition, the annual handouts rising by nearly two-thirds between 2010 and 2015 as the DFID struggles to find places to spend its soaring, ring-fenced budget.
Yet this is a regime that shoots street protesters, locks up dissidents and jails more journalists than almost any other country in the world.
The ruling party uses foreign handouts to strengthen its tyrannical grip, giving food and vital farming aid only to supporters, even in regions suffering hardship and hunger.
This is why the friendly man I met insists on only being known as Mr O; he is terrified taking this case could lead to fatal reprisals against his family. ‘I am very angry about this aid,’ he said. ‘Why is the West, especially the UK, giving so much money to the Ethiopian government when it is committing atrocities on my people?
‘The donations have not gone on development but on supporting the government and the army. We would be happy if it really went on development; instead, the very opposite has happened with your money.’
At the centre of the case is Ethiopia’s ‘villagisation’ of four million people in the west and south of the country, areas that have opposed a government dominated by northern Tigrayans. Among them are 225,000 Gambellans, Protestants living in a former British enclave the size of Belgium.
They are being forced from their farms and homes into new villages, just as Stalin did with such disastrous consequences in the Ukraine.
The lucrative land they lived on for generations is being sold off to foreign investors or given to well- connected Ethiopians.
Mr O learned of these plans at the end of 2011 when officials from the ruling party turned up one day in his village and ordered them to move.
‘The government was pretending it was about development, but people refused straight away,’ said Mr O. ‘They just want to push the indigenous people off so they can take our land and the gold.
‘At the meeting I said this could not be allowed to happen. We were under a big mango tree and I said we’d been living under this tree all our lives, working the fields and living along the rivers. Our parents and grandparents were buried nearby.’

Security forces: Ethiopian police and arms have been moving hundreds of thousands of people from their homesteads. The land is then sold off to foreign investors or wealthy Ethiopians

The response was instant: he was arrested, taken to a military barracks and tortured for several hours at a time over the next three days.
‘It got to the point where I could not feel the pain, since I had been beaten so much. I thought I would die – indeed, I thought it would be better to die than to suffer like this,’ he said.
Finally he cracked and agreed to move. Only then was he given food and water. After three more days in a police station, he was sent to a new village, which did not have water, food or productive fields, and ordered to build a house.
When work went too slowly for the liking of local militia, he was taken to another army camp and beaten; afterwards, he fled over the border for sanctuary.
There he joined the hundreds of thousands of refugees – mainly Somalians but now joined by several thousand Gambellans and other Ethiopians – at the vast Dadaab refugee camp, the world’s largest.
His wife and young children remain. ‘I miss my family so much,’ he said. ‘And I don’t want to be relying on handouts in a refugee camp – I want to be productive.’
I heard similar stories from other Gambellans. One blind man said he was beaten in the face after resisting relocation; his sister was raped by soldiers and now has HIV.

Displaced: Mr O describes how many people did not survive the relocations. Friends from his beautiful village Pinykew in Gambella (pictured) have been butchered and women subjected to mass rape by armed soldiers

A 39-year-old mother told me she and her husband were taking a sick child to hospital when armed soldiers and highlanders from the north confronted them. Her husband was shot dead and she was beaten in the face; the scars were clearly visible.
Officials then told villagers to move. ‘Our first question was about the water but they said move first, then we will supply water pipes. But we had all these rivers in our home village and their new village was six hours’ walk away from water.
‘So we put conditions on the move, saying we would go if you put water pumps in, schools and a health clinic. But the government, despite saying it was all about development, refused the deal.’
Instead, the army and gangs went on the rampage, burning homes and killing people. Three soldiers grabbed her and raped her; one teenage son was abused with an electric prod then taken off to prison. ‘Thankfully he managed to escape,’ she said. ‘After that, we knew the next step was to kill him, so we had to leave quickly.’

Ethiopian “sacred forests” sold to Indian tea producer

 

Native forests of Ethiopia’s Gambella region

Afrol News, 18 February – Despite opposition from Ethiopia’s President and environmental authorities, a rainforest area providing livelihood to an indigenous people has been leased out to make tea plantations.
In a seldom move, the Solidarity Movement for a New Ethiopia (SMNE) has been able to acquire government documents describing the struggle of the Mazenger and other indigenous people to protect their ancient forest-covered lands along tributaries to the White Nile.
According to Obang Metho, who has read the Amharic-language documents, “the letters reads like a drama; showing a game of double-talk, manipulation and intimidation being played by this regime with the land, lives and future of the people.”
The indigenous Mazenger people of Gambella only in early 2010 were made aware that their ancient lands and “secret forests” were to be leased to the Indian company Verdanta Harvests, who plans to clear their land and use it for a tea and spice plantation; destined for export. The Mazenger depend on the forests for everything; including hunting, gathering and beekeeping.
After hearing about this, the local people sent a team of representatives to the capital, Addis Ababa, where they were able to meet with President Girma Wolde-Giorgis – who mostly has representative powers. Telling the President that their livelihood would be destroyed if the lease went through, they won his support.
The documents include a letter from President Girma to the Environmental Protection Authority of Ethiopia (EPAE), recommending the lease project be stopped. The authority investigated the case and on 6 May sent a letter to the Ethiopian Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, saying that the short term benefit of leasing this land would not outweigh the long-term costs to the country and that the lease should not proceed.
Nothing however happened, until in November, the Governor of Gambella Region, Omot Obang Olum, announced that the 5,000 hectares of forests already had been leased out to Verdanta for 50 years. The Indian company had already paid government US$ 19,000 for the lands.
Governor Omot told locals not to interfere more with the project, which would provide them with roads, employment and income at the plantations. Further disagreement was labelled “anti-development”.
In December, the Mazenger people again contacted President Girma, who again lent them support. In letters directly to the Minister of Agriculture, with a copy to powerful Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, he literally ordered the Minister to stop this project from going any further because this land, with its abundant rain forests, should be protected.
However, President Girma again was ignored. In January, Governor Omot ordered the Mazenger villagers to change their leaders, appointing persons more sympathetic to the project.
Currently, the project is moving forward and the forests are being cleared. The Indian company is already in full control of the ancestral lands of the Mazenger people.
In current Ethiopia, which is seeking a “green revolution” to boost its economy, land leases to foreign companies are increasingly becoming a controversial issue. In the cases known so far, the leases have been known to benefit the national economy and further investments.
Little has however been known about how local interests and traditional land rights are affected by the “land grab”. The files documenting the struggle of the Mazenger people in so far are unique.