An investigative piece on Heineken brewery
and could the church be facing another crisis?
Last week’s edition of The Continent came out with an investigative piece on the farmers that had been evicted to make way for Heineken’s brewery in Ethiopia – located in Kilinto – 10 years ago. The compensation given to the farmers could neither buy nor build these farmers a new house. One man in the story who resisted eviction was tortured by police; he now works at the brewery making between 10 to 40 dollars a month.
The response from Heineken on this story was that, ‘providing fair compensation and suitable relocation is managed by the Ethiopian government’ and that the company, ‘will engage locally to understand what happened’.
Here’s an excerpt from the story:
“In recent years, the Ethiopian government has been enthusiastically renting large swathes of its territory to both local and foreign investors, regardless of who is already living there. Since 2008, some 7-million hectares have been leased to investors.”
The Church is opposing bishop appointments (from Tigray)
The Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church (Holy Synod) has denounced the appointment of bishops by the Tigray Orthodox Tewahedo Church.
This is not the first time the Holy Synod has opposed appointments which it says are happening against canonical procedures. Most of my updates in February revolved around what took place when a breakaway synod appointed 26 bishops in Oromia and surrounding regions. Since then, protests took place across the city, people were injured and imprisoned, and some even lost their lives. Finally, after a few weeks and an intervention by the Prime Minister, the Church was reunited with the breakaway archbishops. You can read a chronological breakdown of that here.
This appointment made by the Tigray Orthodox Tewahedo Church was for churches abroad intended to serve the Tigrayan diaspora. Some of you may be thinking, wait, there’s two separate churches? Yes.
The Tigray Orthodox Tewahedo Church cut ties with the Holy Synod in May 2021 due to what it said was the silence of the Holy Synod during the war when atrocities were taking place in Tigray.
If you recall, the Holy Synod sent out a letter to the Tigray Orthodox Tewahedo Church in early February, requesting reconciliation between the two, adding that ‘politician shouldn’t separate the Church’.
The Tigray Orthodox Tewahedo Church didn’t mince words when they declined this request saying it was hard to reconcile the atrocities that took place in Tigray and the silence of the Holy Synod at the time.
Well, now these new appointments by the Tigray Orthodox Tewahedo Church have spurred on the Holy Synod to take some action; call an emergency meeting this coming week and request Tigray’s new interim government to play a role.
The full story in English by Addis Standard here.
From Tigray
Last week, the Ethiopian parliament voted to delist the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) from its designation as a terrorist organization. This is a part of the agreement points under the peace agreement signed between the federal government and the TPLF. The TPLF was designated as a terrorist organization in May 2021, six months after war broke out in Tigray. The vote to delist the TPLF was opposed by 61 members of the house (out of 288), including opposition political parties.
My post from last week mentioned that Getachew Reda was elected to lead Tigray’s interim administration – in place until elections can be held – by the TPLF. This appointment has been officially confirmed by Prime Minster Abiy Ahmed last week. My story for VOA in English here, a story in Amharic from Addis Admass here and The Reporter’s version of events in English.
Also last week, injured and physically disabled fighters in Tigray went out on a protest rally in the regional capital, Mekelle, demanding medical treatment and food. Protesters were tear-gassed according to this story from Addis Standard.
Concerning Oromia region
The National Dialogue Commission, established last year to conduct country wide public discussions, is at its final stages of preparation and will launch in the next few months. The aim is to solve the country’s problems through dialogue.
However, this story by The Reporter says that, as the Commission selects representatives from across the country, it is facing barriers in Oromia region, specifically in seven zones, where the terrorist designated Oromo Liberation Army (OLA) is active and controls areas. The Commissioner (Professor Mesfin Araya) says that 10 political parties are still not onboarded and that armed forces must be part of this discussion, that the Commission’s ‘doors are open’.
If you recall, in February, the President of Oromia region, Shimelis Abdisa called for reconciliation between the government and the OLA. The OLA, in turn, asked for international mediators at the time. One of the founders of opposition party Oromo Liberation Front (OLF) is calling for the OLA to be delisted from its terrorist designation in order to solve the conflict according to this story from Addis Standard.
On Ethiopia’s external debt
Representatives from the International Monetary Fund are in town this week1 to speak with government officials and hopefully sign what Addis Fortune reported as a ‘staff level agreement’. The best-case scenario is that IMF will resume its multibillion-dollar program – agreed upon in 2019 – which was discontinued in November 2020 due to the war. The implementation of the peace deal has helped pushed this conversation along.
The country’s economy has taken one hit after the other with the COVID-19 pandemic, the war in the north and Ukraine (which in turn had worsened global food shocks), and drought among others.
A few things to know.
Ethiopia’s external debt stands at 27 billion dollars. The country’s biggest creditor is China, owed over one third of this 27 billion dollars.
Ethiopia requires 20 billion dollars for a recovery program to rebuild from the impacts of the war in Tigray region as well as affected areas in Afar and Amhara regions.
Debt servicing takes up the largest share of the country budget with over 22% allocated to repayments. The next largest share goes to defense at 14.9% according to this story by Capital Newspaper.
Ethiopian government officials were in Beijing and Paris to discuss debt restructuring as China and France are the co-chairs on a committee that ‘examines Ethiopia's applications for debt restructuring.’
Other countries which are facing similar debt levels include Zambia, Chad and Ghana. The full story in English at Addis Fortune here and The Reporter’s here.
Human right updates
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s comments on crimes committed by all warring sides in Ethiopia was not well received by Ethiopian authorities last week. But that’s hardly news at this point.
The Secretary of State said that according to a report by the US State Department, there was evidence of war atrocities by the all sides including the Ethiopian government, the Eritrean army, regional Amhara forces and the TPLF. Moreover, all warring sides, excluding the TPLF, have been implicated in crimes against humanity. The Ethiopian government responded by saying that these reporters ‘contained nothing new’, rather it was untimely, since the Ethiopian government had recently launched its work on a transitional justice policy.
My story on that here.
But on the other hand, it looks like the Ethiopian government may have stopped its lobbying to cut short the mandate of a UN investigation into human rights violations in the country. I wrote an update on this in an earlier post, saying that Amnesty International was opposing this move. The Ethiopian government was lobbying to end the investigation and block the publications of the findings; when the investigation’s first report came out in September 2022 it implicated the Ethiopian government in using starvation as a weapon of war in Tigray. The report was promptly rejected by the government.
Now, it looks like authorities may have backed off of this latest effort. A report by Reuters says that, ‘Addis Abeba has dropped its proposal on the understanding that no further renewal of the probe would be sought by Western countries when it expires later this year.’
The investigation was extended for one more year last October, after investigators said they needed more time.
In other news
Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed was in Gurage Zone over the weekend, to hold discussions with community members. Questions raised in the meeting included development issues including essential services like water. I wrote about how continued water shortages in the Zone’s capital, Welkite, had turned into deadly protests in February. Another issue tabled was the Zone’s ongoing request for regional statehood, which has also led to many protests, boycotts, and detentions.
The UN is requesting 116 million dollars in urgent funding to support over 100,000 people who have crossed over into Ethiopia from Somaliland over the past month. Conflict in Las Anod has forced people to flee their homes and while the host community are welcoming the refugees into the community, resources are running thin, as the area was already one of the worst hit areas by drought.
Announcements:
Next week is Sifter’s 10th edition and to mark that special milestone, I will be adding a debrief on an interesting research report done on Ethiopian media. It’s not exactly news, but it does help frame the context on where we do get our news from and what the media landscape looks like in Ethiopia.
That’s all for this week. I’ll be back next week with more updates!
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Note: I go through all the major news outlets, newspapers, online publications, and will at times, include reports, notes on parliamentary sessions, and go through fact checking websites as well. I try to provide links to both English and Amharic sources, and I usually time stamp the video I link to unless I think the whole video is relevant.
The original post mistakenly said ‘were in town last week’.