Archives for: August 2007, 17

08/17/07

01:51:24 pm, by nazret.com, 736 words, 5378 views

Categories: Ethiopia, Eritrea, Terrorism

U.S. moves to declare Eritrea a 'state sponsor of terrorism'

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Eritrea - U.S. moves to declare Eritrea a 'state sponsor of terrorism' for Somalia role

By Matthew Lee
ASSOCIATED PRESS

8:10 a.m. August 17, 2007

WASHINGTON – The Bush administration is preparing a case to designate the Red Sea state of Eritrea a “state sponsor of terrorism” for its alleged support of al-Qaeda-linked Islamist militants in Somalia, the top U.S. diplomat for Africa said Friday.

Officials are now compiling evidence of Eritrean backing for the extremists to support the designation, a rare move that would impose severe sanctions on the impoverished nation and put it in the same pariah category as Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Sudan and Syria, said Jendayi Frazer, the assistant secretary of state for African affairs.

“We have to put together the case against them, that information is being collected right now,” Frazer said. “The information so far that we've collected is fairly convincing about their activities in terms of 'state sponsor' in Somalia.”

“It will be evaluated through an interagency process and then decisions will be taken,” she said, without providing a timeline. She said Eritrea had been informed of the possible action “through private channels.”

Frazer, speaking at a briefing called to discuss deteriorating relations between the United States and the increasingly authoritarian country, said Washington agreed with a recent report by U.N. experts that found Eritrea to be the primary source of weapons and cash for Islamist insurgents in Somalia.

“We do have intelligence that affirms what's in the monitoring report,” she said, adding that while the information is being collected Eritrea has a chance to change its behavior and avoid the designation. “What we cannot tolerate is their support for terror activity, particularly in Somalia.”

The U.N. report, obtained by The Associated Press last month before its official release, says the Islamist insurgents in Somalia have enough surface-to-air missiles, suicide vests and explosives to sustain their war against the internationally backed Somali government, largely due to secret shipments from Eritrea.

It says Eritrea has shipped a “huge quantity of arms” to the insurgents, known as the Shabab. The shipments continued despite U.N. efforts to bring peace to Somalia and the deployment of African Union peacekeepers.

Eritrean officials could not immediately be reached for comment on Friday but they have repeatedly denied providing any assistance to the Shabab, the militant wing of an Islamic group that ruled much of southern Somalia for six months last year until Eritrea's arch-foe Ethiopia invaded in December and ousted them.

U.S. officials believe the militants have close ties to al-Qaeda and are harboring several suspects wanted for the 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.

The “state sponsor of terrorism” designation is rarely used and represents a near death sentence for diplomatic relations with the United States. Washington maintains a diplomatic presence in three of the countries now on the list – Cuba, Sudan and Syria – but does not have an ambassador in any of them.

Those on the list are banned from receiving all non-emergency U.S. aid and subject to a host of financial sanctions. It also penalizes people, firms and third countries that engage in trade with designees.

The last country added was Sudan in 1993 and only two countries have been removed from the list: Iraq after the U.S.-led invasion and ouster of Saddam Hussein in 2003 and Libya last year after it renounced terrorism and weapons of mass destruction.

Ties between the United States and Eritrea have steadily declined in recent years with U.S. officials complaining of Eritrea playing a destabilizing role in the Horn of Africa through its continued animosity with regional foe Ethiopia, its activities in Somalia and support for rebels in Sudan.

At the same time, Washington accuses Asmara of clamping down on internal dissent, hindering the work of aid workers and interfering with U.S. diplomatic work in the country. Earlier this month, the State Department ordered the closure of Eritrea's consulate in Oakland, Calif., in retaliation for curbs placed on U.S. diplomats in Eritrea.

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Categories: Business, Ethiopia

Ethiopia - Chinese flocking in numbers to a new frontier: Africa

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File Photo: Volunteer (C) from China chats with Ethiopians after Chinese class in Ethiopia (People's Daily)

Chinese flocking in numbers to a new frontier: Africa

By Howard W. French and Lydia Polgreen

International Herald Tribune

Published: August 17, 2007

LILONGWE, Malawi: When Yang Jie left home at 18, he was doing what people from China's hardscrabble Fujian Province have done for generations: emigrating in search of a better living overseas.

What set him apart was his destination. Instead of the traditional adopted homelands in North America and Europe, where Fujian people have settled by the hundreds of thousands, he chose southern Africa, making his way to this small, landlocked country where Stanley and Livingstone's legendary meeting occurred.

"Before I left China," said Yang, now 25, "I thought Africa was all one big desert," a place forever bathed in terrible heat. So he figured ice cream would naturally be in high demand, and with money pooled from relatives and friends, created his own factory. Malawi's climate, in fact, is subtropical, but that has not stopped his ice cream company from becoming the country's biggest.

Stories like this have become legion across Africa over the last five years or so, as hundreds of thousands of Chinese have discovered the continent, setting off to do business in a part of the world that had been terra incognita for their compatriots. The Xinhua press agency recently estimated there were at least 750,000 Chinese working or living for extended periods on the continent, a reflection of burgeoning economic ties between China and Africa that reached $55 billion in trade in 2006, compared with less than $10 million a generation earlier.

Even when Yang arrived here in 2001, he said he could go weeks without encountering another traveler from his homeland. But as surely as his investments in the country have prospered, he said, an increasingly large community of Chinese migrants has taken root, running everything from small factories to health care clinics and trading companies.

During the previous wave of Chinese interest in Africa in the 1960s and 70s, an era of radical socialism and proclaimed third world solidarity, European and American companies held sway over economies across most of the continent. Here and there, though, the Chinese made their presence felt, often as a curious sight: drably dressed, state-run work brigades that built stadiums, railroads and highways, often crushing rocks and performing other heavy labor by hand. Today, in many of the countries the new Chinese emigrants have settled in, like Chad, Chinese-owned pharmacies, massage parlors and restaurants serving a variety of regional Chinese cuisines can be found; the Western presence, once dominant, has steadily dwindled, and essentially consists nowadays of relief experts working with international agencies or oil workers, living behind high walls in heavily guarded enclaves.

At first, this new Chinese exodus was driven largely by word of mouth, as pioneers like Yang relayed news back home of abundant opportunities in a part of the world where many economies lay undeveloped or in ruins, and where even in the richer countries many things taken for granted in the developed world awaited builders and investors.

Conditions like these often deter Western investors, but for many budding Chinese entrepreneurs, Africa's emerging economies are inviting precisely because they seem small and accessible. Competition is often weak or nonexistent, and for African customers, the low price of many Chinese goods and services make them more affordable than their Western counterparts.

You Xianwen sold his pipe-laying business in Chengdu this year to move to Ethiopia's capital, Addis Ababa, to join a startup company with a Chinese partner he had previously only met online.

"Back where I come from we are pretty independent people," said You, 55. "My brothers and sisters all supported my decision to come here. In fact, they say that if things really work out for me, they would like to move to Africa, too."

You said that before settling on Ethiopia, he had considered other African countries, including Zambia. "Luckily I didn't decide to go there," he said, explaining that he had been frightened by the recent anti-Chinese protests in that country.

His new business, ABC Bioenergy, builds devices that generate combustible gas from ordinary refuse, providing what You says would be an affordable alternative source of energy in a country where electricity supplies are erratic and prices high.

You's partner here, Mei Haijun, first came to Ethiopia a decade ago to work at a Chinese-built textile factory and has since married an Ethiopian woman, with whom he has a newborn child. "When I first came here you could go two months without seeing another Chinese person," he said. "But it is a different era now. There's a flight to China every day."

Indeed, air traffic has picked up between China and countries like Ethiopia, with Chinese carriers scrambling to add new routes, as the Chinese government and big Chinese companies increase their stake in Africa.

Much of that activity reflects an intense appetite for African oil and mineral resources needed to fuel China's manufacturing sector, but big Chinese companies have quickly become formidable competitors in other sectors as well, particularly for big-ticket public works contracts. China is building major new railroad lines in Nigeria and Angola, large dams in Sudan, airports in several countries, and new roads, it seems, almost everywhere.

One of the largest road builders, China Road and Bridge Construction, has picked up where the solidarity brigades of an earlier generation left off. The company, owned by the Chinese government, has 29 projects in Africa, many of them financed by the World Bank or other lenders, and it maintains offices in 22 African countries.

On a recent Ethiopian Airlines flight from Addis Ababa to Beijing brimming with Chinese contractors, workers from Road and Bridge and other companies swapped notes on the grab bag of countries they work in, and debated about the difficulties of learning Portuguese and French in places like Mozambique and Ivory Coast.

Africans view the influx of Chinese with a mix of anticipation and dread. Business leaders in Chad, a central African nation with deepening oil ties to China, are bracing for what they suspect will be an army of Chinese workers and investors.

"We expect a large influx of at least 40,000 Chinese in the coming years," said Renaud Dinguemnaial, director of Chad's chamber of commerce. "This massive arrival could be a plus for the economy, but we are also worried. When they arrive, will they bring their own workers, stay in their own houses, send all their money home?"

In Zambia, where anti-Chinese sentiment has been building for several years, merchants at Lusaka's central market said that if Chinese people want to come to Africa, they should come as investors, building factories, not as petty traders who compete for already scarce customers for bottom-dollar items like flip-flops and T-shirts.

"The Chinese claim to come here as investors, but they are trading just like us," said Dorothy Mainga, who sells knockoff Puma sneakers and Harley Davidson T-shirts in Lusaka's Kamwala Market. "They are selling the same things we are selling at cheap prices. We pay duty and tax, but they use their connections to avoid paying tax." Although Chinese oil workers have been kidnapped in Nigeria and in Ethiopia, where nine were killed by an armed separatist movement in May, the growing Chinese presence around the continent has produced few serious incidents.

Misunderstandings are common, however, and resentments inevitably arise. Africans in many countries complain that Chinese workers occupy jobs that locals are either qualified for or could be easily trained to do. "We are happy to have the Chinese here," said Dennis Phiri, a 21-year-old Malawian university student who is studying to become an engineer. "The problem with the Chinese companies is that they reserve all the good jobs for their own people. Africans are only hired in menial roles."

Another frequently heard criticism is that the Chinese are clannish, sticking together day and night.

In Addis Ababa, in what is a typical arrangement for most large companies, the 200 Chinese workers for China Road and Bridge all live in a communal compound, eating food prepared by cooks brought from China and even receiving basic health care from a Chinese doctor.

"After a day off you wonder what you're doing here, so we like to keep working," said Cheng Qian, the country manager for the road building company in Ethiopia. He added that his family had never visited him during several years of work there. "They have no interest in Africa," he said. "If it were Europe, things would be different."

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Categories: Sport, Ethiopia, Athletics

Ethiopia - For Tufa, 10,000m was not love at first sight

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For Tufa, 10,000m was not love at first sight

IAAF

Addis Ababa, Ethiopia - Of the few things that irritated Ethiopian runner Mestawet Tufa in the two years prior to 2007, the mention of the words 10,000m definitely topped the list.

“I hated the mention of the event,” Tufa says. “Five years ago when I competed for the first time in the event in Addis Ababa, I was lapped by five or six runners and finished seventh.”

Instead of working hard and getting better at the event, Tufa chose to stay away from the event until this year when she ‘gambled’ on a decision to return at the 36th Ethiopian Athletics Championships in Addis Ababa.

It has proven to be a masterstroke of a decision that has since seen her take the national title, run a world leading time (31:00.47 in Valenswaard, Netherlands) at the distance to secure her place in Ethiopia’s team for the 11th IAAF World Championships in Osaka, and storm past world class challengers to win the All African Games title in Algiers, Algeria.

More significantly, however, it has put her in contention for a medal when the world’s top distance runners line up for the women’s 10,000m in the Japanese coastal city.

“I am happy that I made the decision to try the 10,000m,” she says. “It has given me the best year of my career.”

Beginnings mirror Bekele

Article continues ... Scroll down

Before her career shift, Tufa boasted a number of significant performances to her name in youth and junior athletics with her 3000m silver in the 2001 World youth championships in Debrecen, Hungary, and a fifth place finish over the 3000m at the 2000 World Junior Championships in Santiago, Chile the most noteworthy results in her earlier years.

It was a bright opening to an international career that had always promised so much since she joined the Ethiopian club system initially with the Muger Cement sports club.

Born in Bekoji, home to some of Ethiopia’s world class running talents like the Bekele brothers and the Dibaba sisters, Tufa, like Kenenisa Bekele, is the second child in a family of nine children. And like Bekele, her parents tilled the land three times a year for cash and subsistence crops.

“I have never noticed the resemblance,” she says. “But now that you mentioned it, I was also born in the same village as Kenenisa which is a one-hour run from the centre of Bekoji. I also went to the same school as Kenenisa and was introduced to the sport in Physical Education (P.E) classes by Coach Sentayehu Eshetu [the same coach who first spotted Kenenisa’s speed when he trained for football matches].”

Needed some early prodding to pursue running

But Tufa was not easily won over by the lure of the sport early on. “I was extremely shy,” she says. “I was embarrassed for changing from skirts to running shorts and used to get punished in school for it. It was one day when I won a small race, I don’t even remember the distance, that I showed interest. I remember telling my father that I would be the next Derartu Tulu.”

Despite her initial enthusiasm, it took a year before Tufa was convinced that running would be her chosen destiny in life. “After winning a race in Bekoji, I was selected to represent the zone in the Oromiya regional championships,” she says. “I won that race in Assela and entered the Ethiopian cross country championships representing the region. I finished tenth overall, but finished first in the division for regional runners.”

Her performances quickly caught the attention of the top clubs in Ethiopia. Tezazu Wubshet of the Oromiya Prisons sports club even offered her to stay at his home and help her train. “I escaped from his house and went back home to my mother,” she says. “I was homesick and did not realize the importance of running at the time.”

At the end, Tolosa Kotu, current national team coach and then Muger Cement sports club head coach, convinced her to join his club. She would only stay less than a year before joining her current club Omedla.

“I liked the colour of their running jersey,” she says referring to Omedla’s bright yellow track tops. “I also lived and trained with runners of the club and had always dreamt of joining them.”

Tufa competed successfully for Omedla before she was selected for the national team in 2000. After her successes in Santiago and Debrecen, she had looked to follow on the success trail of Dibaba, Defar, and other Ethiopian runners when she started her senior year in 2004, but that was exactly when her injury nightmares started.

“I had won the 5000m in the Addis Ababa Municipal Championships that year,” she says. “But a week before the Ethiopian championships, I suffered a knee injury. I have never been the same since then. I had treatment on the injured both in Ethiopia and overseas, but I have not been able to return back to form in the following years.”

After many starts and stops in her career, Tufa finally got the consistency and fitness she had craved for so long last year when she first qualified for the world cross country championships in Fukuoka, Japan, and announced herself on the senior stage with a seventh place finish in the long course.

“Getting my health back was very important for me,” she says. “I was able to train hard over an extended period without feeling any pains. That was the key to my good performance in Fukuoka.”

Runs through injury to world lead

She had run well over the roads and the cross country this year before making her winning return to the 10,000m in May. But after running a career best of 14:51.72 in Hengelo, she then suffered a recurrence of the injury that had plagued an early part of her career.

“I had arranged to run in Valenswaard, Netherlands,” she recalls. “But I started to feel the pain; I had given up hope of making the race. However, it was Haile Gebrselassie who advised me to run despite my injury problems. I thank him now because of the result.”

The result was victory and a world leading 31:00.27 who guaranteed her place in Ethiopia’s team for Osaka. A month later, she followed up her fast time with victory over Kenyan Edith Masai in the All-African Games 10000m final.

“When I trained in Addis Ababa, I knew in my heart that I would do well in Algiers,” she says. “I decided to run to my strengths in Algiers. I decided to kick with 800m to go. Our coaches and Ethiopian spectators thought I was really crazy and miscalculated the laps because it is not usual for Ethiopian runners to sprint for so long. But it paid off and I am delighted with the victory.”

Her victory has put her among the favourites to grab a medal in Osaka and perhaps push compatriot and defending champion Tirunesh Dibaba to the line. But the 23-year old is not ready to heap her prospects.

“This will be my first major competition,” she says. “I want to do well and make a good impression. I do not want to set targets like medals or victories at this moment.”

Elshadai Negash for the IAAF

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Categories: Ethiopia, Culture and Society

Ethiopia - Campaign for the Return of an Ethiopian Orthodox Church 'Tabot'

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Ethiopia - Campaign for the Return of an Ethiopian Orthodox
Church 'Tabot'- Holy Altar, in possession with the Westminster Abbey, on the Occasion of the Coming Ethiopian Millennium

Press Release

As Ethiopians celebrate their unique Millennium this coming September, it will be without many of their historical treasures, looted in the past and currently held in several British and other European institutions.

The United Kingdom is the country holding the majority of Ethiopian historical artifacts. Among them we find many early manuscripts, at least one Ethiopian royal crown, a dozen tabots, or altar slabs, golden church crowns, gold chalices, and several processional crosses. All these and other artifacts were looted almost 140 years ago during the British expedition against Emperor Theodros of Ethiopia in 1867-68.

The Westminster Abbey is among the institutions unjustly holding loot from Ethiopia. The Abbey is in possession of an Ethiopian Orthodox Church 'Tabot' or Holy Altar Slab. Dr Berhanu Kassayie, a UK citizen
living in London, has raised a campaign and will handin a petition to the Dean of Westminster

Westminster Abbey

Abbey on Thursday 16th August at 2:00 pm. Dr Berhanu, many Orthodox Christians, Ethiopian citizens of Britain and their supporters are asking Westminster Abbey to take a courageous step by returning the Holy Altar Slab to the Ethiopian Orthodox Church on the occasion of forthcoming Ethiopian Millennium.

International justice requires that all looted Ethiopian antiquities be returned to Ethiopia. Demands for restitution have been made in more recent years by the Association for the Return of Ethiopian Maqdala Treasures (AFROMET) which is based in both Ethiopia and Britain. The Ethiopian Millennium provides a perfect opportunity for restitution, and Westminster Abbey should without delay take the courageous step of returning this Ethiopia's historical artifacts to Ethiopia and the Ethiopian people.

The Ethiopian Orthodox Church 'Tabot' at Westminster Abbey has no religious, historical or cultural significance to us here in the UK and little is known about its presence. However, to Ethiopians, it is
emotionally significant and an invaluable symbol of their religion, rich history and culture. It is part of their lawful heritage and they deserve to see it returned to appreciate the religious and cultural
heritage of their ancestors.

From the Campaign statement

More information can be found in the AFROMET website

http://www.afromet.org/

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Categories: Ethiopia

Ethiopia - Addis Ababa Cabbies told 'Beware of Insurgents'

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Ethiopia - Addis Ababa Cabbies told 'Beware of Insurgents'

Beware of Insurgents - Addis Taxi Drivers Told

By Menase Kifle (Daily Monitor)

August 17, 2007 Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

Addis Taxi drivers and their assistants including those who help keep turns have on Thursday been advised to be on alert to identify possible insurgent clients feared on a destabilizing mission here.

The taxi drivers and their colleagues were urged to do so at a half day consultation forum that discussed issues related to crime being committed on city taxis and the code of ethic that was necessary to be kept in the context of the millennium celebrations.

The taxi drivers in this regard were told to be disciplined and courteous.

The country is expecting close to half a million visitors from the Ethiopian Diaspora and tourists for the year long millennium festivities.

"Insurgents from OLF and other terrorist organizations are taking and will take every chance they get to create havoc, diminish the sense of security and tarnish our good image in the outside world," Assistant commissioner of traffic police Tesfaye Meresa warned the taxi drivers. Security forces foiled an attempt the Police said was an attempt by Eritrean-sponsored insurgents to assassinate officials and destroy public institutions, the state-run Ethiopian News Agency reported on Wednesday.

"This latest attempt of terrorism was found to be an orchestration of the rogue government in Asmara, which handed down the mission to the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF), The Ethiopian News Agency reported on Wednesday.

The OLF is an armed group fighting for greater autonomy in the region of Ethiopia inhabited by ethnic Oromo.

Security forces arrested the coordinators and many of those sent to carry out the attacks, the agency said, without giving numbers.

Nine explosive devices, 12 fuses and a Kalashnikov rifle were confiscated, it said, adding that people should be vigilant against attacks aimed at disrupting forthcoming millennium celebrations.

The Assistant Commissioner noted that taxi drivers and their assistants are the main victims of these possible attacks." "In order to stop insurgent terrorists and local pickpockets from creating havoc on tourists they had an obligation to assist the traffic police and the federal police by informing on such individuals.

Assistant commissioner Tesfaye also said taxi drivers were at the forefront of the host committee for the reception of Diaspora and tourists and that they are the ones who can change the main misconception there is about taxi drivers.

Tesfaye said the new millennium offers a best opportunity for "we Ethiopians to put our hands together and defeat poverty." The half-day Confeence which was held at the assembly hall of kebeles 11/12. was organized by the National Millennium Secretariat Council, in collaboration with the Association of Taxi Drivers for Peace and Development .

Deputy Commander Melaku Belew who also attended the conference said taxi drivers and traffic police department needed to work together in order to change the negative perspective that tourists have of taxi drivers to a more positive one.

After the key note addresses, participants of the forum which consisted mainly of taxi drivers discussed on a number of issues revolving around taxi transportation in relation to issues of security, grievances and complaints on the part of the taxi drivers and owners and numerous other issues.

A taxi driver complained that the traffic police had targeted minibus drivers and this made it difficult for them to do their work properly.

He also complained the fact taxi drives were taking the blame for the violations to traffic laws that is frequently committed by white mini-bus taxis with license plate code 03 and nothing was being done to stop them.

In a bid to curb rush hour transportation service shortage, the government recently allowed these code 03 mini-buses to work in the city.

Commander Melaku said the reason taxi drivers had been targeted due to that fact that the accident ratio by taxis alone had risen to 45 % and needed to be curbed.

He went on to say that things would be a lot easier for both parties concerned if taxi drivers drove safely and within the law.

At that point, a taxi driver accused the traffic police of cavorting with criminals and taking bribes.

He also accused the traffic police of not taking steps to right the wrongs when informed of violations and other crimes.

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Addis Ababa Taxis from YouTube

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Categories: Ethiopia, Somalia

Somalia is still a failed state

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Somalia is still a failed state
Aug 17th 2007

From Economist.com

Even hope is in short supply as violence flares in Mogadishu

WHO was behind the murder in the past week of two prominent journalists in Mogadishu, Somalia’s wretched capital city? Ali Imam Sharmake, the director of the country’s respected HornAfrik Radio, was killed while returning home from the funeral of a colleague, Mahad Ahmed Elmi, head of the city’s Capital Voice Radio. Mr Elmi, also a popular presenter, had been shot dead earlier the same day by unknown attackers. Mr Sharmake's jeep was blown up by a remote-controlled landmine—the cowardly assailants watching from a nearby alley. The double killing was a miserable reminder in the rubble-strewn city of how far Somalia has to travel if it is ever to become a normal country.

Both men had been defiant in the face of threats, providing balanced reporting on the tense local situation. The Somali government said the killings were “obviously” the work of Islamist insurgents and quickly picked up two men it says were responsible. The suspects were also accused of trying to murder a Reuters correspondent. Were Islamists behind it all? The device that shredded Mr Sharmake was apparently of a type used by Islamist fighters in the city, but no one really knows. Life in Somalia, for journalists and other civilians alike, remains perilous and miserable.

The killings in Mogadishu are not going away. This week alone at least 30 people have been murdered and 60 seriously injured, most of them civilians. In one incident a grenade was thrown at police from a crowd. In the chaos that followed somebody, perhaps a policeman, let fly with a gun and several others were killed or injured. Elsewhere there were also bombings, mortars, attempted suicide attacks and sniper fire.

Life grinds on, but insecurity keeps down an already feeble economy. Unlike Iraq, Somalia has no oil revenues (although some, including Chinese firms, are rumoured now to be looking) or Pentagon job schemes to keep poverty at bay. Some 1.5m Somalis, about 20% of the population, are thought to need humanitarian aid. An estimated 3,000 civilians flee Mogadishu each week, most of them to disease-ridden camps at the edge of the city. The World Food Programme says that since June insecurity has made proper distributions of food impossible. Even the sea is unsafe: some food shipments have been intercepted by pirates.

Mogadishu, in any case, remains too dangerous for non-Somalis to visit. So most outsiders with an interest in helping the country do their talking in Nairobi, the capital of next-door Kenya. The Somali government wants to create a Green Zone for foreign visitors, but that would not be likely to have much impact given the world’s indifference. America backed Ethiopia's invasion of Somalia in December, in order to bring down an Islamist group that had control of Mogadishu and much of the south of the country. The Americans have promised Somalia more cash and appointed a new envoy, based in Nairobi. But this seems to be little more than window-dressing. America’s main interest is not in creating regional stability but in catching a few suspected al-Qaeda operatives, who may or may not be in Somalia.

America is not alone in its clumsiness. A report issued this week by Human Rights Watch, an NGO, blamed the Somali government and Ethiopia for the deaths of hundreds of civilians in fighting in Mogadishu earlier this year. The shelling of neighbourhoods, occasionally with phosphorous bombs, and summary executions of civilians, caused 400,000 people to flee the city. Oddly, the report made little of the Islamist insurgents, whose fighters took cover in the neighbourhoods. Ethiopia, in particular, was bitter in its denial of the report's findings, calling it “factually and morally repugnant”.

But Ethiopia was meant to be gone from Somalia in February, to be replaced with peacekeepers from the African Union. The fact that it is still the main occupying force reflects the listlessness of the AU operation. So far, of 8,000 peacekeepers promised by the AU only 1,600 Ugandan troops have arrived. Meanwhile, the Islamist insurgents are evidently as determined as ever, remaining a threat to Somalis and, perhaps, to their neighbours as well.

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Categories: Ethiopia, Religion

Ethiopia - Abba Paulos: Smash the idols

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Ethiopia - Abba Paulos: Smash the idols*

Gamal Nkrumah

Al-Ahram Weekly

"We were Christian [charitable and monotheistic] for over a thousand years before Christ," Abba Paulos, Patriarch of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church, declared nonplused. "We have been Christian since Queen Makeda [the biblical Sheba] visited King Solomon in Jerusalem to partake of his wisdom and returned to Ethiopia with the Ark of the Covenant -- containing the actual stone tablets of the Ten Commandments God gave Moses," he explained.

And herein lies the idiosyncrasy of the world's oldest church, which distinguishes it from all other churches: the antic relic held sacred, and placed in the Chapel of Saint Mary of Zion, in the ancient town of Axum, the cradle of Ethiopian Christian civilisation, the sellata Muse, is a thoroughly Jewish object. Indeed, the Ethiopian Church is perhaps the only Christian temple in the world to claim as its most sacred treasure a Jewish holiest of holies.

Many suspect that the Tabot of Zion (Ark of the Covenant) is hidden in the altar of the Church of Saint Mary of Zion. "Only I, and a select few bishops, actually know its precise whereabouts," the Ethiopian Patriarch grinned, gently stroking his salt and pepper beard.

Without batting an eyelid, and perhaps sensing my bafflement, Abba Paulos turned to the crux of his faith. "Religion is the belief in the power of the Almighty. He is the Creator of all. He is the Giver of peace, love and happiness."

According to traditional Ethiopian lore, Philip the Evangelist baptised a treasurer of the Ethiopian Queen Gersamot Hendeke VII. The New Testament's Acts of the Apostles corroborate this landmark event in Ethiopian history.

Ethiopian monotheism harks back much further in time, though. Abba Paulos was born in the vicinity of Axum, where gigantic stelae, designed to look like multiple-storey houses, testify to the greatness of a civilisation that in antiquity ranked with Rome, Persia and China as one of the four greatest empires in the world. The Axumite accolade was attributed to the Persian prophet Mani, and is indicative of Axum's power, influence and grandeur.

Before Axum there was Yeha, a stone's throw away from Axum. Yeha is suspected to be a centre of D'mt, a kingdom now shrouded in the mists of a distant past. All we know today is that its rulers were bestowed the royal title Mukarrib of D'mt and Saba' -- an ancient southwestern Arabian kingdom. The kingdom most likely incorporated Yemen and northern Ethiopia and Eritrea. Yeha, unlike Axum, is dominated by the pagan Temple of the Moon, dedicated no doubt to the Sabaean moon god Al-Maqah.

There are to be found Musnad (South Arabian) inscriptions, characteristic of the Minaeans, the Qatabani, the Himyarite and Hadrami (of Hadramaut, southeast Yemen) civilisations across the Red Sea from D'mt, and rock-cut monumental structures reminiscent of Ma'rib, the celebrated Yemeni wonder of yesteryear. Indeed, Yeha is Ethiopia's answer to Ma'rib. Through archaeological excavations the precise nature of the relationship between the two neighbouring mountainous and majestic lands may unfold in the years to come. The main thing is: Abba Paulos is proud of his heritage.

This rugged land of his was the birthplace of a literary masterpiece, the Kibre Negast (Glory of the Kings), that has exerted an unparalleled impact on Ethiopian civilisation and culture as both sacred scripture and historical lore. It also profoundly influenced the course of Ethiopian politics from antiquity to mediaeval times. Today, other no less potent forces are at work.

However, perched on precipitous peaks, the churches that dot the Ethiopian highlands continue to be venerated as they have been for millennia. The wondrous craftsmanship of the scrupulously contrived churches of the then imperial city of Roha, constructed by King Lalibela (literally: "The bees recognise his suzerainty"), and hewn out of the bedrock in a remote backwater that now bears the king's name, bear tangible testament to the solemnity with which Christianity was revered in this remarkable land.

The Torah, or to be more precise the Pentateuch -- Five Books in Greek, is replete with references to Ethiopia and Ethiopians. According to the Torah, the wife of Moses was an Ethiopian. And Solomon courted the Queen of the South, presumably Makeda of Ethiopia, the biblical Sheba (Saba') -- or was she Bilquis of Yemen as stated in the Quran? The New Testament, too, makes frequent mention of the Ethiopians.

The early Christianity of Axum was first codified at specific places in northern Ethiopia, at a specific time. "They were documented in the holy language of Ge'ez, which was once the official language of the land," the Ethiopian Patriarch extrapolates. Ge'ez, the liturgical language of the contemporary Ethiopian Orthodox Church, harks back to the days of D'mt. It is a Semitic language closely related to Arabic and Hebrew. Today, there are numerous Semitic languages in Ethiopia -- Amharic (formerly the official court tongue and now lingua franca); Tigrinya (the native tongue of Abba Paulos and Prime Minister Meles Zennawi, widely spoken in the northern Province of Tigray and in neighbouring Eritrea); the Adari of the eastern Ethiopian Muslim city of Harar; and the Gurage of southern Ethiopia; among others.

"Heading the Ethiopian Church is no laughing matter," he chuckled. "The 50,000 churches around the country serve the 45 million-strong Orthodox flock representing many different ethnic groups. There are some two million priests, monks and deacons dedicated to pastoral work and delivering services. There are 54 bishops, and 44 dioceses," he muses.

Abba Paulos, the son of a priest, was dispatched to a monastery at the tender age of five. He is steeped in the religion of his forefathers. The oldest of six brothers and sisters, he knew at an early age that he alone among his siblings was to dedicate himself to monastic life.

Tradition ascribes the official introduction of Christianity to Ethiopia to the moment when the Patriarch of Alexandria Athanasius consecrated a Levantine from Tyre, Frumentius, as the first Patriarch of the Ethiopian Church, thereby establishing a tradition whereby the Coptic Pope of Egypt would appoint the Ethiopian Patriarch. Customarily, an Egyptian monk was appointed as the chief bishop of Ethiopia. This tradition was abruptly terminated in 1959 when the first Ethiopian, Abuna Basilios, was selected for the post. He was, however, to begin with, merely a bishop appointed by the Coptic Orthodox Pope of Alexandria and Patriarch of All Africa Cyril VI. Ethiopian nationalism was resurging.

In due course, in May 1971 to be precise, the Egyptian Church received a request from the Ethiopian Church to consecrate an Ethiopian Patriarch (as opposed to a bishop). Even more symbolically significant and without any historical precedent, the Ethiopians also requested that their Patriarch's consecration take place in Ethiopia and not in Egypt as had been the case for two millennia. Since then, the patriarchs of the Ethiopian Church have been consecrated by an all- Ethiopian Holy Synod, with the umbilical chord that bound the Coptic and Ethiopian churches ruptured for good.

The history of Christianity in Ethiopia has often been one of unintended consequences. Ironically, the famous fables of early Christian Ethiopia are Jewish, rather than Christian per se. There is no record of Jewish rulers of Ethiopia, even though the difference between Christianity and Judaism in Ethiopia is often confusingly blurred. It is perhaps more appropriate to speak of a Judaeo- Christian heritage.

Indeed one influential mediaeval monk, Abba Ewotatewos (1273-1352) urged his Christian followers to observe the Judaic Sabbath alongside the Christian Sunday mass. Even so, the Beta Israel of Ethiopia who practised a non-Talmudic form of Judaism suffered persecution in certain periods of the country's long history. We know that Jewish kings ruled Yemen: Youssef Asar Yathar of Himyar, for example, who was routed by the Christian King Kaleb of Ethiopia.

Be that as it may, the Christianisation of the Ethiopian state in the fourth century, during the reign of King Ezana of Axum, was a turning point. It is important to stress that Christianity in Ethiopia was a state religion, closely affiliated with the monarchy and the court. Ethiopia, nevertheless, was always multi-religious, multi- cultural, and multi-ethnic. Many of Ethiopians are non-Christians -- animists, Jews (the so- called Falasha) or Muslims. Indeed, the Arabic name for Ethiopia, Al-Habasha -- from which the English Abbyssinia is derived -- means Land of Mixed Races. Christians in Ethiopia have long learned to co-exist (peacefully or otherwise) with their non-Christian compatriots.

This historical legacy has deeply impacted the nature of the Ethiopian Church. From the outset it was a political, as much as a religious, institution. To this day the Ethiopian Church is an extremely politicised body, and this extends not only from domestic to foreign politics.

The split between the Coptic Church of Egypt and its Ethiopian counterpart in the early 1970s, and more recently, the split between the Eritrean and Ethiopian Churches are unpleasantly conspicuous examples of this legacy. The ruling cliques of Ethiopia have long interfered with, even dictated Church politics; and the Ethiopian Church has traditionally been subject to the whims of the country's political establishment.

For instance, when the Derg usurped power, it promptly arrested Abba Tewophilos in 1976 and executed him in 1979. Tekle Haymanot was hurriedly enthroned by the Derg, and after his death an even more compliant Abba Merkurios was made Patriarch of Ethiopia. He was dismissed by many as a Derg puppet. And with the Derg's demise Abba Paulos was hastily enthroned. His enthronement, however, was sanctioned by the Coptic Church of Egypt.

The incensed former Patriarch Merkurios fled the country and announced from exile that he was forced to abdicate under duress. His followers, mainly ethnic Amhara, still consider him the legitimate Patriarch of Ethiopia and a breakaway alternative synod was formed in exile. A substantial segment of the Ethiopian diaspora in North America and Europe pay allegiance to Merkurios.

The church, therefore, was seen by many as being systematically subordinate to the powers that be. This, however, is an issue that Abba Paulos vehemently disputes.

"Yes, there are those who grumble and complain deriding us as an instrument of state control. They claim that we are an appendage of the state. But we are not. We are completely free," Abba Paulos insists.

"I came to Egypt with ten bishops. I didn't ask the government's permission who should accompany me."

The adherents of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church, like those of the Coptic Church of Egypt, are staunch Monophysites -- that is to say they are convinced that Christ has only one nature. In this they differ from other Eastern Orthodox churches -- the Greek, Romanian, Russian, Serbian and other Slavic and East European churches, for example.

In many other respects, the Ethiopian Church is like no other. Few other people in Africa have been so intensely self-conscious of their unique documented history, hybrid identity and direct relationship with the monotheistic religions of the Middle East.

Royal propaganda played a pivotal part in perpetuating this tradition. Succumbing again and again to the lure of the monotheistic religions of the Middle East emerged as a peculiarly Ethiopian heritage. Since time immemorial Ethiopian religious lore was grounded firmly in the mythologies of the ancient Middle East.

However, certain Ethiopian potentates are known to have strayed from the path of devotion to the Jewish, and then Christian God. Some kings, such as Lij Iyasu crowned in 1913, had even toyed with the idea of becoming Muslim. Indeed, several of his wives were Muslim. Lij Iyasu, however, was forced to abdicate because his courtiers suspected that he had embraced Islam.

But Ethiopia is a land of contrasts and contradictions. Small wonder then that many of the Solomonic royals also claimed to be Ashraf (descendants of the Prophet Mohamed). "My forefathers in Axum provided a safe haven for Muslims fleeing persecution in Mecca," Abba Paulos reminded me. He was referring to the first hijra (exodus), when the Sahaba (the Prophet Mohamed's Companions) fled Hijaz to Ethiopia around 615 AD.

Landlocked Christian Orthodox Ethiopia was for centuries surrounded by Muslim states and conducted its foreign trade through them. At one point, Imam Ahmed bin Ibrahim Al-Ghazi, better known as Gran (The Left- Handed) threatened to overrun the territories precariously held by the country's Christian rulers, who were reduced to fugitives with moveable tents for courts. Churches and monasteries were sacked and people abandoned their Christian faith. The unique Solomonic Christianity of Ethiopia was all but extinguished.

Portuguese firearms saved the day. Even as Gran beseeched the Ottomans for support, so the Ethiopian emperors called on their Portuguese co-religionists to come to the rescue. Be that as it may, the Portuguese failed to convert the bulk of Ethiopian Christians to Roman Catholicism.

The Solomonic dynasty of Ethiopia has preserved a substantial body of memories in spite of the fact that for centuries the actual power and prestige of the crown waned. As imperial power abated, the zemana mesafint, the era of the princes, was ushered in. The prestige of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church suffered in consequence. A few Ethiopian emperors, under the influence of Portuguese missionaries, converted to Roman Catholicism. Emperor Susneyos was forced to abdicate in 1632 AD because he embraced Catholicism.

The days of the Solomonic emperors are over, but the Ethiopian Orthodox Church has survived. It has overcome many ordeals. Today it faces new challenges: internal frictions, the growth of Evangelical Christianity and a host of socio-economic calamities.

As the interview draws to a close, Abba Paulos dwells on hellishly controversial subjects, most notably the HIV/AIDS pandemic that is ravishing his country and the rampant poverty that plagues many of his compatriots. His flock includes the impoverished residents of the many slums that cling to the hillsides of the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa. He insists that poverty eradication and fighting HIV/AIDS, unemployment and homelessness are all part and parcel of the church's mission. "Words and deeds," he explains, saying they are as important as preaching. Orthodox Christianity has played a central role in Ethiopian history, culture and society. "And it will continue to do so."

The Ethiopian Church might vie for the sobriquet of the world's oldest church, but it is a church very much in the making.

Abba Paulos, Patriarch of the Ethiopia, Archbishop of Axum and Echegue of the See of Saint Tekele Haimanot is an imposing man. Last month, in Cairo at the invitation of Pope Shenouda III of Egypt's Coptic Orthodox Church, he was resplendent in glistening white and equally effulgent headgear. He was in Egypt to mend fences. The two "sister churches" have long had a love-hate relationship. Historically, the Coptic Church insisted on posing as the Mother Church; today it has at last come round to the more modest accolade of sister church.

Before Cairo, Abba Paulos visited the Sudanese capital Khartoum, to foster closer ties between Muslims and Christians in Africa. In his capacity as president of the World Council of Churches -- an international body that groups together Orthodox and Protestant Churches -- he met Sudanese President Omar Hassan Al-Bashir. "I feel honoured to have the opportunity to make a deliberation on the most pertinent issue of Muslim-Christian dialogue," he told the Sudanese president. His express aim, as he explained to his host, was to unveil a roadmap for peaceful co-existence between Christians and Muslims in Africa generally, and the Horn of Africa and the Nile Basin in particular.

Abba Paulos eschews ideological and religious fanaticism, for which Ethiopia is particularly badly prepared. It is surrounded by predominantly Muslim nations like Djibouti, Sudan, Somalia and Yemen. It is also a country that has been ruled by a Christian elite traditionally for at least two millennia, even though roughly half of its 70 million people are Muslim.

The official Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church is according to its adherents the oldest church in Christendom, a claim disputed by some other churches. The Ethiopian Church has long been inextricably intertwined with the fortunes, and catastrophes, of the Ethiopian state. Church and state, down the centuries, have served each other well.

However, Ethiopia has witnessed dramatic upheavals since the once "hermitic empire" was invaded by the forces of the Fascist Italian dictator Benito Mussolini in 1935. Ironically, Ethiopia was conquered by a European power at precisely the moment when the first fruits of modernisation instituted by Emperor Menelik II (1889-1913) were beginning to be harvested during the reign of Emperor Haile Sellassie (1930-1974).

A violent, quasi-Marxist revolution, ensued; and the last of a long line of Ethiopian emperors for some 2,500 years was summarily and unceremoniously executed. A military junta (the Derg) ruthlessly ran the country, meddling in Church affairs. Throngs of victims were packed into detention centres where they were routinely tortured; many perished or disappeared without trace.

Abba Paulos was incarcerated, but he managed to flee the country. A resourceful man, he made good use of his exile: he studied theology at Princeton and Yale. His sojourn in the United States abruptly ended when he was hand-picked by the new regime of Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zennawi and appointed Patriarch of Africa's most ancient church. Abba Paulus is acutely conscious that radical changes in his country are currently underway, and that the pace of change is certainly poised to quicken in the 21st Century

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Keane Tebebe mezmur Orthodox Tewahedo

*Correction: We apologize for the link error we had earlier for this story. Thank you to everyone who have contacted us via email about the issue.

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