Ethiopia and the U.S. back on good terms
and is one opposition political party falling apart?
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Welcome to Sifter - a weekly newsletter with a focus on Ethiopia. My name is Maya Misikir, and I am a freelance reporter based in Addis Abeba. I go through all the news every week, so now, you don’t have to.
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Now, to the news.
Diplomacy: Ethiopia and the U.S. back on good terms
A few months ago, in March, I wrote an update entitled, ‘Ethiopia and the US back on good terms?’. At the time, U.S. Secretary of State, Antony Blinken was on a visit to Ethiopia, for the first time following the November peace agreement in Ethiopia. He had met Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed during his visit and many other officials, including Ethiopia’s finance minister Ahmed Shide.
The finance minister, during a press conference held at a UN warehouse, had said that with Blinken’s visit external development would be ‘fully unlocked’. The U.S. had at the time paused economic assistance to Ethiopia during the conflict.
Lo and behold, last week, the U.S. lifted the human rights violations designation on Ethiopia, which according to a story on Foreign Policy will, ‘pave the way to resume the dispatch of U.S. and international economic aid.’
Here’s an excerpt from the story:
“Human rights advocates point to the different sanction regimes imposed as a weather vane for how the conflicts are actually seen in Washington. While both conflicts were marked by widespread atrocities and alleged war crimes, the United States has imposed more than 3,100 sanctions just on Russian entities, while it imposed only six sanctions related to the war in Ethiopia—though all six of those sanctions targeted only officials and entities from neighboring Eritrea for its role in the conflict.”
I wrote an update on a report from Human Rights Watch last month, which detailed ongoing arbitrary detention, torture, and forced deportations of Tigrayans, contrary to the conclusion reached by the U.S. For more on the report, go here.
The full story on Foreign Policy here.
Local politics: Is EZEMA falling apart?
Opposition political party EZEMA (Ethiopian Citizens for Social Justice) was established in 2019. Following the national elections in 2021, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed appointed a member of EZEMA to serve as the Minister of Education. That member, Berhanu Nega, was re-elected1 as the head of EZEMA ten months ago (he still leads the Ministry of Education).
But members of the opposition political party have been leaving en masse since late May of this year.
On May 25, seven of its founding members resigned. Here’s an excerpt from a story on The Reporter from early June, on why the founders decided to leave:
“They accuse leaders of cozying up to the regime, rather than championing the people. EZEMA was to differ from the former government that “left scars passed down generations,” but “the will to bring the party back on track has not reached its goal.”
Forty-one district members resigned shortly after this.
Last week, Wazema Radio reported that 250 more leadership-level and regular members left the party. According to a joint statement from these members, part of the reasons for their departure is that the political party is taking sides with the current ruling party and is looking the other way when human rights abuses take place.
The full story in English on The Reporter here, and in Amharic on Wazema Radio here.
Election board: Birtukan resigns
The head of the National Electoral Board of Ethiopia, Birtukan Midekssa, has resigned. She announced her resignation last week Monday, saying that she needs to take a long rest due to health-related reasons.
Birtukan was chairperson of the Board for over four years after being nominated to the role by Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed in 2018.
In mid-May, the Board made news when it declined a request by the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) to be recognized as a legal party again. At the time, the Board had cited that there were no legal grounds for TPLF to be re-instated as a party despite the peace agreement signed with the federal government.
The spokesperson for the TPLF, Getachew Reda, responded to the decision saying that due to the November peace agreement, the terrorist designation of the party had been lifted and that denying legal recognition was detrimental to the peace process.
Last month, the Board declined a request for the registration of a political party based in Tigray named the Tigray People’s Liberation Front on the basis that it would create confusion.
The tweet from Getachew Reda in Amharic here, and the full story of the chairperson’s resignation from Addis Standard in English here.
Export trade: The numbers don’t look good
Export trade earning for the past year (2022/2023) has gone down by nearly 12 percent. Ethiopia already has a low foreign currency reserve and this won’t help; the country earned 3.2 billion dollars, almost a billion dollars less than last year.
You might be wondering what are those things the country exports. Mainly agriculture products, which brought about 2.5 billion dollars (making up 70% of all exports). Of these agricultural products, coffee takes the biggest share.
So why the dip? According to a report by Addis Fortune, because the ‘value of Ethiopia’s main coffee export, Arabica, plunged by 35pc.’
Parliamentarians were not at all happy about this bit of news (as well as the overall outlook of the country) and questioned the strategy of the Ministry of Trade and Regional Integration. Here’s an excerpt from Addis Fortune:
“Tola Hailu, an MP from the Bale Zone in the Oromia Regional State, voiced his scepticism about the efficacy of the Ministry’s strategies in the fight against inflation and illegal trade.
“It’s hard to tell if there is a trade Ministry,” he told Fortune, questioning whether any efforts had borne fruit.”
Other questions from parliamentarians included problems with the availability of essential food items and cooking oil.
The full story in English on Addis Fortune here.
New region alert: South Ethiopia Region
Back in February, I wrote an update on a referendum taking place in the south of Ethiopia for what was then anticipated to be the country’s 12th regional state. The referendum took place on the 6th of February across six zones and five special weredas. While five of the special weredas and five of the zones voted for the creation of a separate state (out of the Southern Nations Nationalities and People’s Region), the vote of one zone, Welayta, had to be redone due to what the National Electoral Board of Ethiopia said was serious breaches in the electoral process.
After launching an investigation and making sure all their ducks were in place for another round of voting, the Board set a date for June 19.
The results of the vote were announced by the Board on the 24th of June – that Welayta had also voted for the creation of the South Ethiopia Region. All that is left is the ratification of the results by the House of Federation (scheduled this week).
The full story on the referendum in Amharic on Ethiopia Insider here.
That’s all for this week. I’ll be back next week with more updates!
In the meantime, you can help support my work by forwarding this email to friends and family who might benefit from keeping up with what’s going on.
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.
Corrected from ‘elected’.
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