September 2, 2010

Scott Baldauf

The best hope for stability in Somalia may lie in African Union troops, but they can’t take the offensive against the terrorist group Al Shabab.

An Al Qaeda-linked Al Shabab militant wrapped a belt of ammunition around his waist in Mogadishu, Somalia, in late August.

Western governments may consider the rising power of the militant group Al Shabab a major threat to the Horn of Africa. But they have learned enough from the ill-fated US military intervention of 1991-93 – portrayed in “Black Hawk Down” – to know that Western troops are not the solution.

Yet, as the Al Qaeda-backed fighters take control of much of Somalia’s rubble-strewn capital, Mogadishu, there is certainly plenty of reason for the West and for democratic African countries in the region to be concerned. On Aug. 24, Al Shabab claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing in a part of Mogadishu thought to be under government control, an event that killed more than 30, including six members of parliament.

Until the tottering three-year-old interim Somali government stands up to the challenge, the best hope for stability lies in the 6,000-strong African Union peacekeeping mission (AMISOM), manned primarily by troops from Uganda and Burundi and funded mostly by nations worried about the threat of a terror haven in East Africa.

“There are not many countries lining up to join this mission,” says E.J. Hogen-doorn, head of the Horn of Africa mission for the International Crisis Group in Nairobi, Kenya. “Everyone is concerned, but no one wants to be the one risking their forces’ lives.

“Now we hear of reinforcements for AMISOM, but even the Ethiopian contingent numbered 40,000 troops, and they still weren’t able to pacify the place,” he adds. Ethiopia occupied Somalia from 2007 to 2008, when Al Shabab was less formidable.

It’s not that Somalia has been free of foreign intervention. In the two decades since the fall of Somalia’s last government, the country has accepted massive foreign food relief; today, half the population survives on foreign food aid. But foreign troops tend to strengthen the hand of extremist politicians of either the nationalist or religious sort, and the legacy of the US intervention and the Ethiopian invasion has been a network of warlords who are difficult to dislodge.

Sheikh Ali Mohamoud Rage, Al Shabab’s spokesman, said on Aug. 24 that Al Shabab would be starting a war against “invaders” – referring to the Ugandan and Burundian forces in AMISOM.

Uganda, which recently suffered a string of Al Shabab suicide attacks in Kampala, has pledged to add troops to the mission, and there are rumors South Africa may contribute to the overall protection force.

But AMISOM has said the solution will have to come from Somalia’s government. The transitional government has been adding troops in preparation for an offensive against Al Shabab, many of them trained by the European Union in Uganda. Moderate Islamist militias have made headway against Al Shabab in central Somalia.

“We have to dissipate the perception that AMISOM is looking for more soldiers to fight Al Shabab,” said AMISOM spokesman Maj. Barigye Bahoku. “Our mandate is to maintain peace and create an environment for national discussion and political settlement. We cannot directly confront Al Shabab, but we have the right to self-defense when we are attacked.”

September 2, 2010

KAMPALA — Uganda said Thursday it can provide up to 10,000 troops for deployment to Somalia where it already has soldiers in the African Union mission protecting the country’s embattled government.

“We have the capacity, as the army leadership has indicated, to raise up to 10,000 soldiers to fill up the gap,” army spokesman Felix Kulayigye told AFP.

The African Union pledged to boost its forces in the Horn of Africa country in the wake of the July 11 deadly suicide bombings in the Ugandan capital which left 76 people dead and were claimed by Somalia’s Shebab rebels.

The AU Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) currently numbers around 6,000 Ugandan and Burundian soldiers, some 2,000 troops short of its intended full strength.

The forces are the only hurdle between the Al Qaeda-linked Shebab and their total takeover of Mogadishu, where they have waged relentless battles with the AU troops to oust the transitional government.

“All those that have pledged assistance to AMISOM, including America, should deliver as soon as possible so that we are able to carry out our mandate,” Kulayigye said.

But the he did not say the size of force the United States is ready to support for deployment.

“We have the capacity to raise a big force including calling up the reservists but the challenge is logistics which we hope America will look into. “Should the assistance come in time, I can assure the world we can raise 10,000 soldiers for deployment in Somalia in a short time,” said Kulayigye.

September 2, 2010

Barry Malone

ADDIS ABABA – Ethiopia on Thursday rejected criticism of its massive hydropower dam projects and vowed to push ahead with plans to boost its power generating ability from 2,000 MW to 10,000 MW within five years.

The Horn of Africa nation’s ambitious dam building programme has drawn fire from human rights groups as well as from Egypt and other Nile River countries.

“We have a plan to reach 10,000 MW within the coming five years,” mines and energy minister, Alemayehu Tegenu, told Reuters in an interview. “Most of the energy we plan to generate will come from hydropower.”

Ethiopia is overwhelmingly reliant on dams for its energy needs and has opened three over the last year, bringing the total number in the country to seven.

Another two are being built, including the huge Gibe III — a project that foreign charities say could leave more than 200,000 people reliant on food aid.

Rights groups, spearheaded by Survival International, have started an online campaign against the dam, which would generate 2,000 MW, and are lobbying international lenders not to contribute to its 1.4 billion euro cost.

“These organisations do not want Ethiopia to develop,” Alemayehu said. “Criticising countries like Ethiopia is their source of income. They have no reason to attack our dams. We have environmental and social plans in place.”

The European Investment Bank (EIB) said last month that it had decided not to help fund the project but did not say why it had made that decision.

Alemayehu said it was possible the EIB had been pressured by rights groups.

“But I don’t know their reason,” he said. “It’s not a big problem for us. We have other options. And the funding at the moment is coming from our government.”

“NO NILE WAR”

Ethiopia’s hydropower plans are also closely watched by Egypt and Sudan who fear more dams on Ethiopia’s stretch of the Nile could leave them thirsty.

After more than a decade of talks driven by anger over the perceived injustice of a previous Nile water treaty signed in 1929, Ethiopia, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda and Kenya signed a new deal in May without their northern neighbours.

The five signatories have given the other Nile Basin countries — Egypt, Sudan, Burundi and Democratic Republic of the Congo — one year to join the pact but the countries have been split by behind-the-scenes rows since the signing.

Under the 1929 deal, Egypt, which faces water shortages by 2017, is entitled to 55.5 billion cubic metres a year, the lion’s share of the Nile’s flow of 84 billion cubic metres. Some 85 percent of the Nile’s waters originate in Ethiopia.

The nine countries are due to meet again in the Kenyan capital Nairobi in November.

“What we will construct on the river will never cause any problems for the Egyptians,” Alemayehu said. “But the Egyptians always stand against Ethiopian development. They need to understand better what we are planning.”

Alemayehu, however, ruled out the possibility that war could erupt over the Nile.

“That will never happen,” he said. “Never.”

Ethiopia plans to export power to neighbouring Sudan, Djibouti and Kenya as soon as it meets its own growing energy needs, Alemayehu said.

Ethiopia rationed power for five months this year with outages every second day, which closed factories, hampered exports and fuelled a currency shortage.

“We should have no need to ration power in 2011 with our new dams,” Alemayehu said. “We are now building interconnectivity infrastructure with Sudan and Djibouti and that should be finished within six months.”

Power demand in Africa will rise by 150,000 MW between 2007 and 2030, according to the International Energy Agency.

August 30, 2010

Photo: Wikimedia Commons
A boy carries water at the Shimelba refugee camp in northern Ethiopia

ADDIS ABABA – Kibrom Sebhatu, 45, is among hundreds of Eritreans expected to benefit from a recent Ethiopian government ruling allowing Eritrean refugees to live outside the camps.

“I am happy that UNHCR [the UN Refugee Agency] and the government of Ethiopia agreed to let us live outside the camps. I hope this will open a new era in Ethiopia-Eritrea relations,” Sebhatu said. He joined the Shimelba Refugee camp, along the border with Eritrea, in 2006, after serving in the Eritrean army.

The new policy will allow Eritrean refugees to live in urban areas, improving their access to services and helping to build stronger ties with Ethiopians, the legal and protection officer at the agency for the Administration of Refugees and Returnees’ Affairs, Estifanos Gebremedhin, told IRIN.

Under the “out-of-camp” scheme, Eritrean refugees can live in any part of the country, provided they are able to sustain themselves financially or have a relative or friend who commits to supporting them. Sebhatu is relying on support from relatives living in the US.

Critics have warned that the move may pose a risk to peace in Ethiopia but the government disagrees. “We are not worried that the Eritrean government will use the refugees to infiltrate Ethiopia for two reasons. Firstly, we will do proper screening of the refugees before we let them out of the refugee camps.

“Secondly, the infiltration of Ethiopia by Eritrean [refugees] is not the most cost-effective or efficient way to infiltrate Ethiopia and the Eritrean government knows that,” Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi told journalists recently.

The UNHCR representative to Ethiopia, Moses Okello, said: “Refugees are not subversive people. The issue related to security is one for government to deal with.

“We look at refugees as persons who need international protection. There is no reason why Eritrean, Sudanese, or Somali refugees should be seen in any other light other than that they are refugees. Branding them in one way or another is not fair. We have lived with them, we know them; they are refugees and nothing else.”

Eritrean refugees in Ethiopian camps without a criminal record are eligible under the policy, which according to UNHCR, “is also a response to refugees’ wishes and needs for strengthened… relations between the two countries”.

Eritrea and Ethiopia were a single political entity before a 1993 referendum in which Eritreans voted almost unanimously for independence. A 1998-2000 border conflict led to the displacement of thousands of civilians in both countries. Ethiopia expelled an estimated 77,000 Eritreans and Ethiopians of Eritrean origin it deemed to be a security risk, while Eritrea interned around 7,500 Ethiopians living there and deported thousands more.

At least 60,000 Eritrean refugees have crossed into Ethiopia since the border conflict, with more than 36,000 living in three camps and two community centres, according to UNHCR.

Sebhatu said: “Now my dream has come true, God is so gracious. We [Ethiopians and Eritreans] are relatives. We were brothers and sisters but we killed each other for nothing… Thanks to the government of Ethiopia and donors, I am enjoying life in Addis.”

Peter Heinlein

Ethiopia has banned off-campus education, and ordered private universities to close degree programs in law and education.

A directive issued by Ethiopia’s Education Ministry describes distance learning at off-campus sites as “unnecessary at this stage” and orders all such operations to stop enrolling new students immediately. The proclamation also prohibits private universities from accepting new applicants in teaching or law degree programs.

The ruling will affect 64 private institutions, most of which have sprung up in the past 15 years as the government opened higher education to the private sector. The distance education ban also includes Ethiopia’s 23 public universities.

Educators estimate there are roughly 75,000 students currently enrolled in distance education programs, about one-third in undergraduate programs and the rest in technical and vocational training. The rules allow them to complete their course work.

Education Ministry spokesman Abera Abate Abebe says the directive was issued in the interest of maintaining education standards. He says several private institutions were more interested in profit making than in providing quality education.

“When the purpose is collecting money, it is not a good purpose,” said Abera. “The only issue some universities have is collecting money.”

The directive has drawn outrage from private educators.

Wondwosen Tamrat founded St. Mary’s College in Addis Ababa 11 years ago with 37 students. Today St. Mary’s has 7,000 undergraduate students on its main campus and more than 10,000 others enrolled in a nationwide distance learning program. He says the directive is a crushing blow to institutions like St. Mary’s.

“To begin with, two-thirds of the students are in the distance education division,” said Wondwosen. “If you are not offering this program, it would mean we would be losing what we have been working for the last 11 years. We have 140 distance education centers all around the country. We have people in all of these centers. We would be losing these.”

Wondwosen says closing distance education, plus the loss of the teaching and law faculties, will force the layoff of more than 800 of the university’s 1,200 employees.

He acknowledges there are disreputable private Ethiopian universities that grant degrees to anyone who pays the tuition. But he says St. Mary’s students, who pay the equivalent of about $1,000 for a three-year course of study, have been driving national standards in some areas.

He says the new directive will undo all the good the government did 15 years ago when it overturned a ban on private education that had been in effect during the rule of the Marxist dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam.

“They are spoiling what they have already done,” added Wondwosen. “All this access the public is having through an expanded public system or a newly created private system has been the making of the government. I do not see any reason why government decides to go back on its own practice and tell us it is no longer possible to do these things.”

Education Ministry spokesman Abera says the directive will be strictly enforced. But he suggests the rules could be eased once institutions issuing worthless degrees are forced to close.

“It may be a short period of time,” explained Abera. “It is not for a long, it is not the end. Maybe [when] education is going straight on a track that is quality.”

Wondwosen says the growth of private universities in Ethiopia has contributed to a five-fold increase in the country’s gross higher education enrollment ratio. A decade ago, one percent of Ethiopians went to college, as compared to an Africa-wide average of six percent. The latest survey indicates the figure for Ethiopia has risen to 5.1 percent.

September 1, 2010

Barry Malone

* IMF says devaluation will “bolster competitiveness”

ADDIS ABABA – The Ethiopian birr ETB= was devalued by 16.7 percent on Wednesday, according to exchange rates published on the central bank’s website, a move welcomed by the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

The birr was quoted by the National Bank of Ethiopia at a weighted average of 16.3514 against the dollar compared with 13.6284 on Tuesday. A central bank official confirmed the new rate but was not authorised to make further comment.

“The IMF welcomes this move given it will help bolster Ethiopia’s competitiveness,” IMF representative in Ethiopia, Sukhwinder Singh, told Reuters. “It will need to be supported by appropriate monetary policy.”

Last month, the government unveiled an ambitious five-year economic plan which targets average annual economic growth of 14.9 percent over the period and aims to end the Horn of Africa nation’s dependence on food aid.

Ethiopia is Africa’s biggest coffee exporter and the world’s fourth largest exporter of sesame. It is also one of Africa’s biggest potential markets — with a population of 80 million — and most of its people have no telephones or bank accounts.

The devaluation is the Horn of Africa nation’s fourth since January 2009. Devaluations can spur economic growth and reduce current account deficits to the extent they boost exports and discourage imports, although they carry the risk of importing inflation.

‘DEPRECIATION LIKELY TO CONTINUE’

“I think it’s related to the new five-year plan and a strategy of export promotion and import substitution,” Tewodros Mekonnen, an economist with local think tank, the Ethiopian Economic Association, told Reuters.

“Obviously there’s a risk it could cause inflation. It will probably also boost foreign direct investment and remittances.”

Inflation in Ethiopia hit a high of 64.2 percent in July 2008. After that peak, the government halted state borrowing and increased bank reserves to drive down the rate. The country’s central bank also instructed private banks to restrict borrowing.

The inflation rate slowed to 5.7 percent in July.

“Years of high inflation have eroded the country’s export competitiveness, and the government has continually favoured sharp currency depreciations to counteract this,” Joseph Lake, an analyst at the Economist Intelligence Unit, told Reuters.

“Though inflation has eased in recent months, this pattern of currency depreciation is likely to continue. Low levels of foreign exchange reserves, and twin fiscal and current-account deficits will continue to put pressure on the currency,” Lake said.

The country — one of the world’s biggest recipients of foreign aid — is keen to attract foreign investment in agriculture and mineral exploration.

Ethiopia has operated a managed floating exchange rate regime since 1992. (Editing by George Obulutsa and Ron Askew)

August 30, 2010

Barry Malone

ADDIS ABABA – More than a quarter of a million Ethiopians are risk from severe flooding next month when heavy rain is expected in the country, according to government estimates issued by the United Nations on Monday.

The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said 19 people were killed in mudslides after flooding last week and nearly 12,000 people had been displaced since then.

“Some 270,000 people could be affected by flooding in the (Amhara region),” OCHA said in a statement, quoting a contingency plan issued by regional authorities.

Flooding often affects Ethiopia’s lowlands during the rainy season between June and September. In 2006, more than 1,000 people were killed and more than 300,000 made homeless.

“New flooding has been reported in recent days, including in the eastern Amhara lowlands and in northern Somali Region,” it said.

The plan says $6.8 million would be needed to respond to such an emergency.

The country’s disaster management office gave a lower estimate, saying 153,000 people were likely to be affected by next month’s floods, of whom 25 per cent could lose their homes.

“Good contingency planning needs to be in place,” an aid worker monitoring the flooding told Reuters. “According to data from the meteorological office, the heavy rains will continue through September.”

Almost 5,000 people who fled to higher ground are now stranded and inaccessible to local authorities, according to the OCHA statement.

Significant flooding damages the country’s agriculture-based economy, washing away thousands of cattle, ruining crops and submerging roads.

August 31, 2010

Desalegn Sisay

Ethiopian Airlines has made an overwhelming insurance claim from the state owned Ethiopian Insurance Corporation (EIC) for the crash of one of its aircraft off the coast of Beirut, Lebanon in January this year.

The Ethiopian Insurance Corporation has reported a 1.5 billion birr insurance claim by Ethiopian Airlines in its recently concluded fiscal year report.

According to Yewondesen Etafa, managing director of the EIC, the claim is over 480 percent higher than that of the previous year’s claims.

It is believed that a substantial part of the 1.5 billion birr claim is to go into the payment of compensations as a result of the loss of 90 lives and properties caused by the crash.

EIC’s managing director, however, failed to give a detailed account of the claims made by the airline company.

The national insurance corporation has settled only a few of its claims to the tune of a little over 130 million birr, this year following reports that it is struggling to honour unsettled claims.

The corporation’s difficulties, according to observers, is due to some major disasters that have occurred in the course of the year. This includes a structural damage suffered by the Gilgel Gibe II hydropower project.

The 1.5 billion birr claim from Ethiopian airlines follows the announcement of a 39 million dollar compensation from ACE Global Markets, a British insurance company, a month after the crash.

The company had said that the compensation from ACE Global Markets was the value of the aircraft’s hull, and payable to the owner of the aircraft.

Ethiopian airlines had leased the crashed Boeing 737 in September 2009 from CTI Aerospace, an aviation company.

The plane was built in 2002 and operated with Irish discount carrier Ryanair Holdings Plc until April 2009, when it was acquired by CTI Aerospace.

August 29, 2010

CAIRO – Egypt’s ASEC Company for Mining (ASCOM) said on Sunday it had found two gold mining targets in an Ethiopian concession with enough tonnage and grade potential to suggest an economic discovery is possible.

ASCOM plans to start drilling on the 800-square-kilometre Asosa concession in Western Ethiopia in October, it said in a statement.

The company, 39-percent owned by Egyptian private equity firm Citadel Capital, also said preliminary satellite investigations had identified “numerous” exploration targets in its 3,000-square-kilometre concession in Sudan.

ASCOM has mining and other operations in Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Algeria in addition to Ethiopia and Sudan. (Reporting by Alexander Dziadosz; Editing by David Cowell)

Four African Union peacekeepers were killed when a mortar hit Somalia’s presidential palace, officials say.

It is not clear if any Somalis were hit by the shells, fired as Islamist insurgents continue to battle government forces.

Those killed were from Uganda, one of just two countries to have sent troops to Somalia to help the government. Last month, at least 76 people were killed in Uganda in bombings which a Somali group said it had carried out.

The battle for control of Mogadishu has intensified in the past week.

Last Monday, a suicide attack on a hotel killed at least 32 people, including six MPs.

The Islamist group al-Shabab said it had carried out the attack. Last month, al-Shabab said it was behind two bombings in the Ugandan capital, Kampala, in which more than 70 people died.

Al-Shabab, which has links to al-Qaeda, controls much of southern and central Somalia, while the government is confined to a few pockets of the capital.

Somalia has experienced almost constant conflict since the collapse of its central government in 1991.