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Intensified hold in Ethiopia

There are real dictatorships; army-clad regimes without democratic constitutions and basic rights of freedom. Their numbers are reducing; even the most unscrupulous dictators will no more admit their brutal hold on power.

Then we have pseudo-dictatorships. They look nicer and subscribe to many of the principles we honour in the West. They may even hold election.

Ethiopia is not a real dictatorship. Since 2005, the country has moved at high speed from democracy to near- dictatorship, but even so, the government is working hard not to make it look like a dictatorship. For instance, Ethiopia still has a human rights council, Ethiopian Human Rights Council, EHRCO, an independent human rights organisation. But life is quite difficult for the organisation.

“Our bank accounts have been frozen, our offices searched; staff members have been arrested and board members killed,” says Yoseph Mulugeta, General Secretary of EHRCO.

Limited liberty for NGOs

This month, a new bill is going to be passed, and it will make serious holes in the Ethiopian democratic façade. With this new bill, the human rights council and the main part of the independent organisations, the NGOs, in the country will be disarmed, meaning very tight limits for the NGOs’ activities. Especially any mentioning of human rights is unwelcome.

“During the 2005 elections, the government launched a brutal crack-down on the press and the political opposition, and now it is the turn of civil society,” says the leader of a large Ethiopian NGO, who prefers to be anonymous in the interest of the work of the NGO.

The consequences of the bill mean that all organisations that receive more than ten per cent of their income from abroad will be considered “foreign” and thus lose their right to advocate e.g. women’s rights and human rights.

In practice, it will affect almost all NGOs, because no organisation can survive on member fees in an extremely poor country like Ethiopia. According to the new rules, even the country’s largest church, the Ethiopian Orthodox Church with 30-40 million members, will be considered international.

Technical hair-splitting

“We call it “tactical management”, because the true objective – to pacify civil society – has been muffled in technical hair-splitting about international versus local organisations. The result will be a disaster for both the international and the local NGOs who will have to fold,” says the NGO leader.

EHRCO receives more than 95 per cent of its funds from abroad and faces an impossible choice: either to become a local NGO financed with local funds – or to stop working with human rights.

“Otherwise, we must fold and leave. But we will fight to the end,” says Yoseph Mulugeta.

Worse than Zimbabwe

Lars Jørgensen, DanChurchAid country coordinator for Horn of Africa and Southern Africa, says that the situation of the NGOs is worse than in Zimbabwe.

“I work with both Zimbabwe and Ethiopia, and it is striking that the NGOs have better conditions under the Mugabe regime in Zimbabwe than in Ethiopia. Nevertheless, Zimbabwe is the focus of the western world with sanctions etc., while the government of Ethiopia can do whatever they want, among others because they are on the right side in ‘the fight against terror’.”

“The fight against terror” – and violence in own backyard

It is especially in the name of fight against terror that the Ethiopian government commits its worst human rights violations. In the Ogaden Region bordering Somalia, Ethiopia is conducting a military operation against Muslim rebels from Ogaden National Liberation Front, ONLF. The rebels are ethnic Somalis and fight for home rule in the region.

Eyewitnesses tell about rape, torture, burning of villages and public executions as a warning committed by Ethiopian soldiers among the mainly Somali population in the region. The conflict between Ogaden and Ethiopia has been going on for decades, but has escalated during the past few years after the discovery of large deposits of oil and gas in Ogaden.

A Human Rights Watch report from June 2008 underlines that the violence against civilians in Ogaden increased dramatically last year after ONLF killed 73 Chinese and Ethiopian oil workers.

The report mentions use of sexual violence as war strategy, thousands of ransom executions and trade blockade of the whole conflict area; and hundreds of thousands of people are removed from their homes by force and left to starvation.

Foreigners denied access

The information from the area is scanty, as very few foreigners have access to Ogaden, which is almost seven times the size of Denmark. The government threw out International Red Cross accusing the organisation of cooperating with the rebels; journalists are also denied entry in the worst affected areas.

Satellite photos, however, back the accusations of burning of villages. Observers compare Ogaden with Darfur because of the ethnic overtones in the conflict and the fact that the military does not distinguish between rebels and civilians.

Western countries in “conspiracy of silence”

Human Rights Watch accuses the governments of Great Britain and the USA of accessories to war crimes and crimes against humanity, because both countries have kept silent about the alleged violations in Ogaden.

“These extensive and systematic cruelties are equal to crimes against humanity. Nevertheless, the donors of Ethiopia – USA, Great Britain and the EU – seem to maintain a “conspiracy of silence” about the crimes,” says Georgette Gagnon, head of Human Rights Watch in Africa.

Foreign exchange for the role as “stable Christian island”

All the while, Ethiopia receives foreign exchange for its role as the stable, Christian island in the unstable sea of Muslims on the Horn of Africa. The USA has increased its support towards the Ethiopian army, which is already one of the largest in Africa. In two years, Ethiopia has doubled its export to the USA, while the British development aid has more than doubled since 2005.

Ethiopia is the most important ally in the area around Horn of Africa, and especially for the Americans an important ally in the “war against terror”. However, if you ask the anonymous NGO leader, Ethiopia has become a dictatorship.

“It has become a dictatorship – at any rate a dictatorship in which a small group controls everybody and everything in the country. It looks as if they try to copy the Chinese model.”

Jeppe Villadsen, Journalist