Michael's Blog

Michael Chebud ADDIS ABABA, Jan 30 2009 (IPS)  - African governments have rallied behind Sudanese President Omar Al-Bashir in rejecting a possible international arrest warrant by the International Criminal Court on charges of orchestrating genocide in Sudan’s volatile western region of Darfur. African peacekeepers in Darfur - the AU regards the Sudanese president as vital to achieving peace in the region; the ICC alleges he's a war criminal. Credit: Derk Segaar/IRIN “The continent, through the African Union, has requested the UN Peace and Security Council to suspend the indictment of President Omar Al-Bashir,” chairperson of the African Union Commission Jean Ping told IPS on the sidelines of a high-level meeting of African foreign ministers in Addis Ababa on Jan. 29. Following a three-year investigation at the behest of the U.N. Security Council, ICC Chief Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo concluded there are reasonable grounds to believe that Bashir bears criminal respo...

Michael Chebud ADDIS ABABA, Jan 27 (IPS)  – The Ethiopian parliament has voted into law a controversial bill which bars any civil society organisation receiving more than 10 percent of its funding from foreign sources from engaging in human rights issues. The new law, passed on Jan. 6, affects the majority of the 4,677 registered Ethiopian NGOs. They are now prohibited from work touching in any way on the subject of human rights, governance, criminal justice issues and others. Out of the 547 lawmakers in parliament, 79 opposition politicians raised their hands to veto the bill in vain. Opposition politicians are not the only ones fuming at the latest bill. Humanitarian groups are also strongly dismayed, considering it an attempt by the government to undermine the ailing political space. “Those are the rights of Ethiopian citizens. Foreign groups cannot simply meddle in such affairs any more,” says Berhanu Adelo, head of the Prime Minister’s office. The government consi...

Michael Chebud ADDIS ABABA, Jan 12 2009 (IPS)  - Bertukan Mideksa has a reputation in Ethiopia as a competent politician, but voters will not be able to cast ballots for her in the next national election. The revocation of her 2007 pardon has sent a chill through Ethiopia's opposition parties. After the 2005 elections, opposition protests against irregularities in the polls were followed by violent clashes in the streets. More than 100 opposition leaders were arrested. Mideksa was charged with treason, outrage against the constitution, inciting armed rebellion and more. She spent two years in jail before being convicted and sentenced to life in prison in July 2007 along with 34 others. They were immediately pardoned by President Girma W. Giorgis; the government announced that they had requested a pardon and expressed remorse for their wrongdoings. But while on tour in Europe in November 2008, Mideksa denied making a request for state pardon for the post-election...

Michael Chebud ADDIS ABABA, Dec 13 (IPS) - Tola Melka was planning to throw a traditional party at his shanty home in rural central Ethiopia, anticipating bumper harvest. He was grief-stricken in late October when unexpected rains totally destroyed his almost ripened teff, a native staple crop used to make spongy bread. "I expected the harvest this year would be different," said Melka, frustration evident on his face. "I wonder what I'll be feeding my children in the months to come." Last year, Melka and his wife, Shashe Dima -- then pregnant with their sixth child -- endured overwhelming hunger due to lack of rain. This year too much rain -- three consecutive weeks fell at precisely the wrong time -- could make it even worse. "Nature seems to be at odds with us," says Dima, seated on a hide, breast-feeding her last-born. Melka is just one of the many farmers whose tiny plots of will fail to sustain them through the year.  Some farmers wil...

Michael Chebud ADDIS ABABA, Nov 20 2008 (IPS)  - She fought alongside men in the Ethiopian liberation struggle. She fought for a free and fair society. But today, Yewubmar Asfaw feels that Ethiopia's revolution has failed to deliver a fair share of political power to women. Asfaw is determined that her new political party will not repeat previous mistakes. Credit: Michael Chebsi/IPS In her book, published this year in Amharic, Asfaw, 52, describes how the liberation groups marginalised women fighters during the struggle and after the fall of the military regime in 1991. A third of the fighters were women. Yet few of them rose to top positions in the ruling party, the Ethiopian Peoples Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF), which pools the four rebel groups. Among the 547 members of Parliament, only 116 are women, or 22 per cent – although in 2005 the EPRDF said it would reserve 30 per cent of its lists for women. The Tigray Peoples Liberation Front (TPLF), to wh...

Michael Chebud ADDIS ABABA, Oct 29 2008 (IPS)  - Frozen in disbelief on the steps of the courthouse where she presided as a federal judge, Birtukan Mideksa watched as a man she had just ordered released on bail was detained by plain-clothes police with no warrant and no apparent regard for the law. Mideksa -- "The values that guide me are truth and fairness" Credit: Michael Chebsi/IPS That was in 2001. She next saw that man when she became a fellow inmate at Kaliti Federal Prison in 2004, charged with crimes serious enough to have her imprisoned for life: treason, outrage against the constitution, inciting, organising or leading armed rebellion, obstruction of the exercise of constitutional powers, impairing the defensive power of the state and attempted genocide. She claims her only true transgression was dissent. “I couldn’t stand the lack of human dignity,” said Mideksa, seated behind her desk at her poorly furnished office in central Addis Ababa. Mideks...

Federal Authorities are disappointed with the hype surrounding the current drought that has hit parts of Oromia, Somali and the Southern Nations Nationalities and Peoples Regional State. They are locked in an argument with the international media, claiming that the latter have exaggerated the number of children acutely malnourished due to the drought.  Michael Chebud, Fortune Staff Writer,  sat down with Country Representative of the UNICEF, Bjorn Ljungqvist, to hear his views on the situation. Fortune: Following the failure of the  Belg  rains in Ethiopia, some parts of the country have been affected by drought. Authorities claim that the current situation is not a ‘famine’. What are your views on this? Bjorn Ljungqvist: They are absolutely right that it is not a famine, judging from what has happened up to now. But at the same time, there is an elevated level of food insecurity because of the drought in the Southern part, and at least partial failure of t...