Church is facing another crisis
and eyes on Gambella
Church: facing yet another crisis
The Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo is facing its newest crisis – a schism between itself and the Orthodox Tewahedo Church in Tigray (formally known as the See of Selama Kessate Beharan Archdiocese).
This is not news in itself – the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church (hereinafter the Holy Synod) and the Orthodox Tewahedo Church in Tigray first parted ways when the latter severed ties with the former due to the war back in May 2021.
A couple of weeks ago, and more than two years later after the Church in Tigray said it was going its separate way, the Holy Synod issued an apology. They said they were sorry for the grievances and misunderstandings. The apology fell on deaf ears.
Last week, the Church in Tigray went ahead and anointed 10 episcopates it had elected to lead different dioceses in Tigray and aboard. The Holy Synod is not happy with this all. It sent one warning after the other saying it will take legal steps against the establishment of the See of Selama Kessate Beharan Archdiocese and the following appointments.
If you recall the last time a similar thing happened – when the church in Oromia (then referred to as the Holy Synod of Oromia and nations and nationalities) appointed 26 bishops without the blessing of the Holy Synod – things turned out ugly. Protests led to many deaths when security forces took measures and the Prime Minister had to be involved to finally calm things down and come to an agreement. We also couldn’t access social media sites without using a VPN for months until just last week.
The full story on Addis Standard where most of this was sourced here.
Security: eyes on Gambella, says Rights Commission
Last week was yet another week of unrest in Gambella. A story by Addis Standard says that an attack in Gambella city, in Nuer Village, has resulted in 31 deaths. The attackers are allegedly from the Anywaa community, similar to the incident from the week before. A couple of months ago, a prolonged shoot-out resulted in more deaths and injuries of residents. People left seeking safety and their homes were burnt to the ground.
Following last week’s incident, Gambella’s regional government has placed a curfew and the city is now being patrolled by federal police and the Ethiopian National Defense Forces, which has brought relative calm to the region according to the report. The Commission says that these ethnic-based killings need a coordinated response, one that involves everyone in the community including refugees and host communities. Gambella hosts 350,000 refugees from South Sudan.
The full report by the Commission in Amharic here and the story on Addis Standard here.
Reshuffles: they’re fired but will the job get done?
Last week, a few notable government officials left their positions. The director and deputy directors for the Immigration and Citizenship Services were moved from their positions by the Prime Minister and replaced by new officials. The issues with getting a passport over the past few months have reached new heights – people have been complaining for months about how unless you have letters written by government officials, the chances of getting a new passport or a renewal were slim to none.
People I spoke to have been waiting for months, past their appointment dates, and many have missed important trips and events they wanted to attend outside of the country. One person I talked to told me that people are now at the mercy of guards, who are being physically aggressive to people standing in queues.
A story by Wazema Radio talks about how passports are printed outside of the country and that the entity that provides this service has been inundated by requests from many countries following the coronavirus pandemic. So, until this request can be fulfilled, the Immigration and Citizenship Services is giving out the ones it has on hand to those with immediate needs. It says this will be resolved come September when more passports get printed and come into the country.
On a similar note, Tesfahun Gobezay, the director-general for Refugee Returnee Services (which works very closely with the UNHCR - the UN Refugee Agency) shared that he would be leaving his position last week Friday. This announcement follows a similar one by Mamdou Dian Balde, the regional director for East and Horn of Africa and Great Lakes, at UNHCR. The director had announced he had completed his assignment three weeks earlier.
Earlier this month, Reuters came out with a report stating that UN experts are calling on Ethiopia to stop deporting hundreds of Eritreans.
The full story on Al-ain Amharic here and the story on Reuters here.
Environment: 500 million trees? In one day?
There was a lot of commotion last week from Ethiopian government officials about how the country broke another record for most trees planted in one day - this time at 566 million trees. The previous record for most trees planted was held by Ethiopia in 2019, again according to government figures that there were more than 353 million trees planted.
Since then, meaning the past four years of what is formally known as the first phase of the Green Legacy Initiative – the Prime Minister’s go green campaign – the official government data says that over 25 billion trees have been planted across the country. 25 billion. With a b.
In the coming four years, the government says that the plan is to plant another 25 billion. There is no other independent entity that can verify any of these above-mentioned numbers, and the track record of government data doesn’t lend itself to believability.
The BBC’s fact-checking arm, BBC Verify, first did a story on this in August 2019, a month after Ethiopian officials claimed to have broken the first record. Here’s an excerpt:
“The head of one government-linked organization told the BBC they'd been ordered to plant 10,000 trees, but had to pay for them out of their own budget. So they planted 5,000, but reported the full amount.”
In 2019, many international platforms ran with this ‘record-breaking’ story, from NPR to the UN. This time around, I guess they’ve decided they have to draw the line somewhere because the only outlets which covered it were mostly local state-affiliated media houses.
It wasn’t just international media houses that were skeptical, people online made their disbelief known by commenting on officials’ congratulatory posts on social media. One particular comment, under the post of Redwan Hussien, security advisor to the prime minister, read, (roughly translated) “I would focus on cultivating your dry minds instead.” The security advisor had time on his hands that day, because he responded with, “Let’s cultivate both.”
The original response has since been deleted; I don’t think the author was ready for a response.
The story from the BBC Verify (from 2019) here and the tweet here.
Culture: Fendika lives to see another day
This is not news to most of you who live in Addis Abeba, but the fight to save Fendika Cultural Center from demolition has been won through the efforts of those who signed the petition and made their voices heard one way or another. Fendika will not be making way for a hotel development project for now. In honor of this win, I’m sharing an article on the cultural hub.
Here’s an excerpt:
“Comparable to medieval troubadours, the azmari are itinerant poet-musicians from rural Ethiopia, who improvise songs while playing the masenqo, a single-string bowed lute made of wood, horsehair and raw hide.
Their songs are rich in metaphors and double meanings, humorously mocking their audience, civil society and even powerful elites -- reflecting a freedom of expression rarely seen in Ethiopia.”
The full story France24 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.
"With a b." Cracked me up there! Quite a noticeable drop in enthusiasm over the course of three years for Ethiopian "world records." Thanks for the roundup!