By Anuradha Mittal
OAKLAND, California, Jan 25 2016 (IPS)

With the African Union celebrating the African Year of Human Rights at its 26th summit, at its headquarters in Addis, Ethiopia, the venue raises serious concerns about commitment to human rights.

Anuradha Mittal

Ethiopia’s so called economic development policies have not only ignored but enabled and exacerbated civil and human rights abuses in the country. Case and point is the ongoing land grabbing affecting several regions of the country. Under the controversial “villagization” program, the Ethiopian government is forcibly relocating over 1.5 million people to make land available to investors for so called economic growth. Since last November, the country’s ruling party, EPRDF’s, “Master Plan” to expand the capital Addis has been the flashpoint for protests in Oromia which will impact some 2 million people. At least 140 protestors have been killed by security forces while many more have been injured and arrested, including political leaders like Bekele Gerba, Deputy Chairman of the Oromo Federalist Congress, Oromia’s largest legally registered political party. Arrested on December 23, 2015, his whereabouts remain unknown.

Political marginalization, arbitrary arrests, beatings, murders, intimidation, and rapes mark the experience of communities around Ethiopia defending their land rights. This violence in the name of delivering economic growth is built on the 2009 Anti-Terrorism Proclamation, which has allowed the Ethiopian government secure complete hegemonic authority by suppressing any form of dissent.

A new report, Ethiopia’s Anti-Terrorism Law: A Tool to Stifle Dissent, by the Oakland Institute and the Environmental Defender Law Center, authored by lawyers including representatives from leading international law firms, unravels the 2009 Proclamation. It confirms that the law is designed and used by the Ethiopian Government as a tool of repression to silence its critics. It criminalizes basic human rights, like the freedom of speech and assembly. Its definition of “terrorist act,” does not conform with international standards given the law defines terrorism in an extremely broad and vague way, providing the ruling party with an iron fist to punish words and acts that would be legal in a democracy.

The law’s staggering breadth and vagueness, makes it impossible for citizens to know or even predict what conduct may violate the law, subjecting them to grave criminal sanctions. This has resulted in a systematic withdrawal of free speech in the country as newspaper journalists and editors, indigenous leaders, land rights activists, bloggers, political opposition members, and students are charged as terrorists. In 2010, journalists and governmental critics were arrested and tortured in the lead-up to the national election. In 2014, six privately owned publications closed after government harassment; at least 22 journalists, bloggers, and publishers were criminally charged; and more than 30 journalists fled the country in fear of being arrested under repressive laws.

The law also gives the police and security services unprecedented new powers and shifts the burden of proof to the accused. Ethiopia has abducted individuals from foreign countries including the British national Andy Tsege and the Norwegian national, Okello Akway Ochalla, and brought them to Ethiopia to face charges of violating the anti-terrorism law. Such abductions violate the terms of extradition treaties between Ethiopia and other countries; violate the territorial sovereignty of the other countries; and violate the fundamental human rights of those charged under the law. Worse still, many of those charged report having been beaten or tortured, as in the case of Mr. Okello. The main evidence courts have against such individuals are their so-called confessions.

Some individuals charged under Ethiopia’s anti-terrorism law are being prosecuted for conduct that occurred before that law entered into force. These prosecutions violate the principles of legality and non-retroactivity, which Ethiopia is bound to uphold both under international law as well as the Charter 22 of its own constitution.

A few other key examples of those charged under the law, include the 9 bloggers; Pastor Omot Agwa, former translator for the World Bank Inspection Panel; and journalists Reeyot Alemu and Eskinder Nega; and hundreds more, all arrested under the Anti-Terrorism law.

It has been a fallacious tradition in development thought to equate economic underdevelopment with repressive forms of governance and economic modernity with democratic rule. Yet Ethiopia forces us to confront that its widely celebrated economic renaissance by its Western allies and donor countries is dependent on violent autocratic governance. The case of Ethiopia should compel the US and the UK to question their own complicity in supporting the Ethiopian regime, the west’s key ally in Africa.

Given the compelling analysis provided by the report, it is imperative that the international community demands that until such time as Ethiopian government revises its anti-terrorism law to bring it into conformity with international standards, it repeals the use of this repressive piece of legislation.

Case and point is the controversial resettlement program under which the Ethiopian government seeks to relocate 1.5 million people as part of an economic development plan. Research by groups including the Oakland Institute, International Rivers Network, Human Rights Watch, and Inclusive Development International, among others, as well as journalists.

Perhaps there is hesitation to confront this because it would implicate the global flows of development assistance that make possible rule by the EPRDF. Receiving a yearly average of 3.5 billion dollars in development aid, Ethiopia tops lists of development aid recipients of USAID, DfID, and the World Bank. Staggeringly, international assistance represents 50 to 60 per cent of the Ethiopian national budget. Evidently, foreign assistance is indispensible to the national governance. At the face of this dependency, the Ethiopian government exercises repressive hegemony over Ethiopian political and civil expression.

It is the responsibility of international donors to account for the political effects of development assistance with thorough and consistent investigations and substantive demand for political reform and democratic practices as a condition for sustained international aid. This will inevitably mean a new type of Ethiopian renaissance, one that seeks the simultaneous establishment of democratic governance and improving economic conditions.

(End)

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Seismologists say a new children's hospital being planned for Couva, in Trinidad, is located near a fault line. According to one report, 67 per cent of hospitals in the Caribbean and Latin America are located in areas at high risk for natural disasters. Credit: Jewel Fraser/IPS

By Jewel Fraser
PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad, Sep 21 2014 (IPS)

When floods overwhelmed the Eastern Caribbean in December last year, St. Vincent’s new smart hospital, completed just a few months earlier, stood the test of “remaining functional during and immediately after a natural disaster.”

The floods, later dubbed the Christmas rains, killed more than a dozen people and caused millions of dollars in infrastructural damage. However, the Georgetown Hospital in St. Vincent weathered the natural disaster, living up to the definition of a smart hospital in that it continued to serve the community without interruption.“We had the Christmas floods on Dec. 24 and the island’s water supply system was down whereas the hospital’s water supply remained functional. The community bought into it [after that]." -- Shalini Jagnarine of PAHO

According to a report by the UK’s Department for International Development (DFID), “More than 67% of hospitals in the Caribbean and Latin America are located in areas of higher risk of disaster.

“Enormous economic losses occur (including lost income and work days) when health facilities are destroyed or damaged by natural disasters — they must be re-built and downtime limits their ability to provide emergency care to victims and ongoing healthcare for their communities.”

The report adds, “Building resilience of communities and critical buildings like hospitals and schools delivers better results in terms of lives saved and livelihoods protected than simply through responding to the effects of disasters or climate variability.

“Establishing an integrated and forward looking approach to hospital design is essential if health facilities are to be safe, green and sustainable.”

Dr. Dana Van Alphen, the regional advisor for PAHO’s Disaster Risk Management Programme, told IPS that during a meeting of PAHO officials there were discussions about “how we could include climate change adaptation measures into our safe hospital initiative.”

The safe hospital initiative was launched in the Caribbean about a decade ago and has become a global standard for assessing the likelihood a hospital can remain functional in disaster situations.

PAHO worked with the DFID to launch the Smart Hospital Initiative. The DFID agreed to fund the initiative from its International Climate Fund for one year, citing “building resilience to climate change and disasters [as] a central pillar” of its 2011-2015 Operational Plan for the Caribbean.

Dr. Van Alphen said the Georgetown Hospital was chosen as one of two demonstration hospitals for the Smart Hospital Initiative because PAHO wanted “to convince policy makers that there are tangible measures for safety and natural disasters, there are practical measures that one can take and still see a benefit” without the costs being prohibitive.

Georgetown Hospital and the Pogson Hospital in St. Kitts were chosen as the two demonstration hospitals, after surveying 38 hospitals in the region. Of the 38 surveyed, 18 per cent were found to have structural and functional issues that required urgent measures to protect the lives of patients and staff.

“We took [those] two hospitals where we got support from the community and support from the government to implement the project. We wanted to do a success story,” Dr. Van Alphen said.

Some 350,000 dollars was allocated to retrofit Georgetown Hospital, which had structural and functional deficiencies including an unsafe roof, no backup power supply, and no water storage system.

The hospital, built in the 1980s, is a 25-bed facility in the parish of Charlotte that serves a population of almost 10,000.

The work done on the hospital included the renovating of the roof, waterproofing of the windows, installation of photovoltaic solar panels to ensure an alternative power supply, and the introduction of a rainwater harvesting system. The hospital was generally refurbished and upgraded to make it a more comfortable and pleasing environment for working and convalescing.

As a result of the retrofitting, there was a 60 percent reduction in energy consumption, said Dr. Van Alphen.

The DFID in its “Intervention Summary: Smart Health Care Facilities in the Caribbean”, notes that “according to Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) calculations, every dollar a hospital in the United States saves on energy is equivalent to generating 20 dollars in new revenues.

“Therefore, investing in activities that help reduce the health sector’s climate footprint will ultimately liberate money for allocation towards a hospital’s genuine purpose — improving overall patient care and health in the community.”

Since energy costs in the Caribbean are among the highest in the world, reduction in hospitals’ energy bill would free up significant resources, the DFID noted.

While the community was generally happy with the upgrades — according to the results of surveys conducted before and after the retrofitting that showed a significant increase in patients’ and staff’s satisfaction levels — there remained some concerns.

One of these was the community’s reluctance to accept the use of harvested rainwater. Shalini Jagnarine, a structural engineer with PAHO’s Disaster Management Unit, told IPS that that reluctance melted away with the Christmas floods.

“We had the Christmas floods on Dec. 24 and the island’s water supply system was down whereas the hospital’s water supply remained functional. The community bought into it [after that],” she said.

Another issue, according to the cost-benefit analysis of the project, was the financial sustainability of the project. The cost-benefit analysis report stated that “the cost of maintenance and operation [needs to be] minimized and other sources of revenue schemes…identified to financially support the project over its lifespan.”

The retrofitting of St. Kitt’s Pogson Medical Centre in Sandy Point village focused on showing how small changes can make a new and otherwise safe hospital more efficient, safe and environmentally friendly.

The work done included the installation of emergency exits, better access for the disabled, and upgrade of the plumbing fixtures and electrical systems.

Jagnarine said, “When you have a hospital that is already built, to make it safe you have to be smart about the financial decisions you make. To make it 100 per cent green may be too expensive.”

Dr. Van Alphen added, “The cost-benefit analysis is very important…What is the cost of not implementing these measures? What is the cost to your country and community if you do not make your health facility green and you are impacted by a natural disaster? The decision we take depends on the money we have, but there are simple things that can be done.”

Edited by: Kitty Stapp

The writer can be contacted at jwl_42@yahoo.com

Ethiopia invests more of its resources in hydropower than any other country in Africa. Pictured here is the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, situated in Ethiopia’s Benishangul-Gumuz Region on the Blue Nile. Credit: William Davison/IPS

By Carey L. Biron
WASHINGTON, Jul 17 2013 (IPS)

The U.S. and U.K. foreign assistance offices are being accused of ignoring, mischaracterising or downplaying testimony offered by ethnic communities in Ethiopia who accuse the Addis Ababa government of forcefully evicting them from their lands and violating their human rights in the name of mass development projects.

Despite multiple fact-finding missions to affected communities by USAID and DFID, the U.S. and U.K. foreign aid arms, both governments have repeatedly found the accusations of abuse to be unsubstantiated.“This whole idea of a ‘Renaissance state’ is taking place at a huge cost, being borne especially by the indigenous communities." -- Anuradha Mittal of the Oakland Institute

Yet according to recordings of some of the mission meetings, published Wednesday by the Oakland Institute, a U.S. watchdog group, officials from both agencies appear to have received repeated testimony of abuse allegations at the hands of the Ethiopian government. (The reports can be found here and here.)

“Transcripts of these recordings, made public with this report, leave no room for doubt that the donor agencies were given highly credible first-hand accounts of serious human rights violations during their field investigation and they have chosen to steadfastly ignore these accounts,” Will Hurd, the author of one of the new reports and a local NGO worker and translator who made the recordings, writes.

“According to a high-up official in USAID, the USAID member of the field visit party reported that the accounts of human rights abuses heard in the Omo were all ‘third-hand.’ It is clear from the transcripts, however, that many were first-hand.”

The recordings were made during a January 2012 mission to the Lower Omo Valley, in southwestern Ethiopia.

“These transcripts show that these delegations heard quite a lot,” Anuradha Mittal, the executive director at the Oakland Institute, told IPS. “These donor governments now need to take responsibility for their inaction, to look critically at these questionable development policies.”

While no formal report has ever been publicly released by either USAID or DFID following the January 2012 mission or a follow-up in November, IPS was able to see a leaked copy of a four-page joint briefing that followed the January discussions (no report was leaked following the November mission).

That report notes the mission members were offered allegations of “rape of women and … a young boy”, “use of force and intimidation with the presence of the ‘military’”, and “Government threats including ‘sell your cattle or we will inject and kill them’”, among others.

The report concludes: “As a consequence of these events the Mursi and Bodi [local ethnic communities] in particular stated that they were living in fear, resorting to other food sources or going hungry. The phrase ‘waiting to die’ was used. Although these allegations are extremely serious they could not be substantiated by this visit.”

This last phrase was bolded and underlined, and further follow-up was recommended.

According to the Oakland Institute, USAID and DFID subsequently reported this conclusion to the Development Assistance Group, comprised of 26 of the world’s largest aid and development agencies, including the United Nations Development Programme, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

In March, the World Bank’s Inspection Panel cited evidence that the institution may be supporting Ethiopian “villagisation” programmes and requested an investigation into the matter, though Addis Ababa officials have since refused to cooperate.

Additional information on the villagisation process can be found here. Neither USAID nor DFID responded to request for comment for this story by deadline.

Renaissance

Over the past two decades, Ethiopia has emerged as a rising economic powerhouse. This has prompted international donors to heap praise and aid monies on the country in the hopes that it can help to anchor the restive Horn of Africa and lead what has been referred to as an “African Renaissance”.

In recent years, this support has translated into around 3.5 billion dollars annually in various types of aid, comprising more than half of the country’s budget. Yet that assistance has in part bolstered a series of aggressive, far-reaching national development plans put in place by Ethiopia’s long-time former leader, Meles Zenawi.

These include contested hydroelectric dams and massive agricultural plantations, for which mass land-clearing programmes have threatened to drive an estimated 260,000 locals off their lands, to be forcibly resettled in other areas – the process known as “villagisation”.

Although Meles died last year, new Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn has made clear that his government would work to continue the development programme underway.

According to the recordings released by the Oakland Institute and other testimony gathered by rights groups in the past, the “villagisation” project has translated into an at times vicious programme of violence and intimidation against local communities, often perpetrated by the Ethiopian security forces.

“The Ethiopian government comes and takes up all our land and gives us violence, and they rape our wives,” one Mursi man can be heard telling the USAID and DFID officials during a meeting near the South Omo community of Hailewuha.

Another Mursi man warned: “We are only waiting for death. This land is being ploughed by the government.”

According to Hurd’s account, this particular meeting became quite heated. He states that the U.S. and U.K. officials present appeared to want to focus on development issues – what services the local communities wanted from the government, for instance – but that Mursi representatives kept steering the discussion back towards the abuses they said were being perpetrated by the government.

‘Obviously unacceptable’

It appears clear that the officials were moved by the testimony they heard.

“[O]bviously we agree that it’s unacceptable, beatings and rapes and lack of consultation and proper compensation,” a DFID representative stated at one point. “I totally agree … and would raise very strongly with the government as the wrong way to do this. It just simply is wrong. It simply is wrong. Obviously, we totally agree and it’s worrying to hear about those things.”

While it is unknown how strongly either delegation has since pushed these points with the Ethiopian government, the final decision on the part of both governments – that such allegations are impossible to substantiate – continues to stand as official policy. In any event, critics are warning that neither the villagisation processes nor the Western aid funding have changed in any meaningful way.

“This evidence clearly shows how these aid agencies are both directly and indirectly providing funding for a government that has been a human rights abuser with regards to its development policies,” the Oakland Institute’s Mittal told IPS.

“This whole idea of a ‘Renaissance state’ is taking place at a huge cost, being borne especially by the indigenous communities – and USAID and DFID are responsible for fuelling these policies.”