The worst type of advice (unsolicited)
and a report on internet shutdowns
Hi there,
A quick update on the Sifter community meet up; I have yet to narrow down a location but I will have one ready for next week. I’m planning on having it the first week of June, tentatively. In the meantime, let me know how many of you are based in Addis:
To new subscribers, welcome to Sifter; a weekly roundup of news on Ethiopia. I’m Maya Misikir, a freelance reporter based in Addi Abeba, and I curate it.
Now, to the news.
Diplomacy: a spicy kerfuffle
‘Unsolicited advice’ was how the Ethiopian government phrased the Policy Speech on Human Rights and Dialogue given by the US Ambassador to Ethiopia, last Wednesday.
Ambassador Ervin J. Massinga, who was appointed to this role in October last year, spoke about how armed groups, as well as government security forces, act with impunity in the country and carry out violations with disregard for due process and the rule of law. He wasn’t incorrect but far be it for any US official to lecture anyone else on human rights abuses. He didn’t stop there.
The Ambassador also addressed armed groups in the country by name and one after the other; he asked fighters from Ethiopia’s Oromia Region, the OLA (Oromo Liberation Army), to not give up on seeking peace (remember the two failed peace negotiations?). He reminded the Fano, an informal militia in Ethiopia’s Amhara region who have been fighting the federal government since August last year, that rejection of dialogue is not good. He added, to the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) in Ethiopia’s Tigray Region, to not take over territory by force.
A day later, the Ethiopian government responded, calling the speech, ‘ill-advised’ and ‘contrary to the historical and friendly relations’ between the two countries. Furthermore, how dare the Ambassador directly mention these groups that have blackmailed, kidnapped, and terrorized civilians? (I paraphrased here but that’s what they meant).
What on earth could have moved the Ambassador to say such a thing? Well, overall there’s been a series of reports on human rights coming from the national rights body, the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission (Commission), over the past few months (and years) - that have been implicating all conflicting sides in serious rights violations; an issue highlighted in the Ambassador’s speech.
Another reason could be the recent assassination of Ethiopian opposition political figure, Bate Urgessa. Last week, it was revealed that the Commission was unable to continue its investigation into his killing because government security forces had started tailing its investigators and witnesses. The US Embassy had shared a statement on both occasions.
The OLA, on its part, said that the Ethiopian government should brace itself for more unsolicited advice, as it’s, ‘nosediving a country of 120 million and destabilizing an already troubled and geo-strategically significant region.’
The full speech by the US Ambassador, here, the response of the Ethiopian government here, and the statement by the OLA, here.
Displacement: an institutional perspective
I have been writing updates on what happened to Piassa (one of Addis Abeba’s oldest neighborhoods), since right before the demolitions started taking place. I wrote the first one when Ethiopia Insider reported that the Addis Abeba City Administration held a meeting telling Piassa residents to leave (some within three days).
I wrote the second one when the city administration had finalized the documents to sell off the plots to the highest bidder after relocating 11,000 residents.
Thousands have been displaced by these projects, and many buildings have also turned to rubble. The one thing evident in my conversations with people, when I covered this story, was an air of uncertainty and insecurity that people felt. Some people whose houses had been ‘spared’ told me that they have no guarantee that come tomorrow they won’t share the same fate. And indeed, the third update came when we found out an additional 15,000 people would have to make way for yet another corridor project, aimed at redeveloping and leasing lands across some other central parts of the city, thanks to a story on The Reporter.
Here’s an excerpt from a story I did for The Continent on Piassa:
One of the area’s most iconic buildings, Hager Fikir – the first theatre in Addis – has been spared. But its historic front gate and an outbuilding, used as a torture chamber by the Italian occupiers, have been razed. “We pushed back, asking for formal letters communicating the decision,” said theatre director Abdulkarim Jemal. “It bought us a few days. But they demolished it anyway.”
The full story on The Continent, here.
Internet: the worst year for shutdowns (2023)
Access Now released its report on internet shutdowns last week and it says that 2023 was the worst year since it began compiling the report in 2016. The organization works to ‘defend and extend the digital rights of people and communities at risk’.
Ethiopia has, yet again, graced the pages of this annual report, described in the list of worst (repeat) offenders ‘entrenched and emboldened in the use of shutdown’ with over 1153 days of internet shutdown in parts of Tigray since November 2020 (as of the end of last year.)
Who were the new offenders included in this year? Kenya, Mozambique, Nepal, and Suriname. The report adds that this is twice as much as last year, which signals that it is ‘spreading geographically’.
What was the main cause of internet shutdowns last year? Conflict.
Here’s an excerpt from the report on that:
More militaries are using shutdowns as part of deliberate strategy to cut populations off from the world, either as a precursor to atrocities and violence against civilians or as part of a continuous, systematic dismantling of civilian infrastructure. The weaponization of internet shutdowns during active conflict has resulted in compounding humanitarian crises. In conflict zones and beyond, 2023 is the most violent year of shutdowns on record, with 173 shutdowns corresponding to acts of violence — a 26% increase from 2022.
But it’s not all bad news, thankfully.
Countries that had a history of shutdowns kept promises last year, says the report. Here’s an excerpt on that:
As part of our collective advocacy with coalition members and partners through the #KeepItOn Election Watch, we saw three African countries with a history of shutdowns — the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Nigeria, and Sierra Leone — make and uphold public commitments to keep people connected in 2023 elections. There was also good news on the legal front: for the third time, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Court of Justice ruled against the use of shutdowns, after civil society groups challenged a shutdown in Guinea.
The report ends by asking all of us to ‘reject the dangerous normalization of these disruptions’, to ‘uphold human rights’, and for governments to #KeepItOn.
The full report on Access Now, here, and a global snapshot, here.
Reshuffle: let’s try this again
There were some major political reshuffles over the past week in the Ethiopian government but before we get to that, let’s take a look back at 2018. Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed had just come to power, he had appointed 10 women ministers from the 20-member cabinet, and we were all dizzy with hope.
Here’s an excerpt from a story I had covered for Ethiopia Insight:
One of the many reforms Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s government would undertake, it was lauded both internationally and at home—not only for the equal share of seats given to women at this high-level ministerial table but for their appointment in posts never before held by their fellows. Most notable were the country’s first Minister of Peace, Muferiat Kemal, and Minister of Defence, Aisha Mohammed.
That didn’t last very long.
But it looks like Aisha, who had, not long after her appointment, been replaced by Lemma Megersa, will be reinstated into her former position. Between then and now, she has served as the Minister of Urban Development and Construction, the Minister of Tourism and Culture, and her last post was as Minister of Irrigation and Lowland (is there nothing she can’t do?).
Abraham Belay, ‘the only Tigrayan native in PM Abiy’s cabinet’, who held the Minister of Defence post, has now taken her old post as Minister of Irrigation and Lowland.
The full story, where this update was sourced from, on Addis Standard, here.
Banking: a ‘response’ by the Commercial Bank
I’ve written updates on and reported on the recent malfeasance of the Commercial Bank of Ethiopia (Bank) a few times. You can look at a quick summary of that debacle here if you’re not familiar (it’s worth it).
The Banks’s CEO, Abie Sano, gave an interview on Walta TV, a state-affiliated media house on this issue (as well as on other things that were mildly relevant) so I thought I’d share some highlights from that.
A few things that jumped out from the one-hour interview:
When asked about the data privacy issue of the customers the Bank had published, the CEO skirted around the issues at first, saying that they never called the customers thieves, but rather people that ‘took their money’. After a few seconds, the CEO states that there’s a ‘name and shame’ law they put into practice (law? where?). Then he says that the steps the Bank took can be criticized to a certain extent but that this was the only solution. When the reporter keeps asking him about the privacy rights of the customers, he finally doubles down, saying if any ‘thief’ has been harmed, then he dares them to come asking for compensation.
The whole interview was bizarre, and it seemed to me at first a missed opportunity to ask some real questions but as I progressed into the video, I realized that it had achieved its intended reason; a platform to justify the steps taken by the Bank.
Also notable was another moment when the reporter brought up a question on the Bank’s commission fees for transactions (he said it’s too high and fluctuates). The CEO responded that people complain about the fee because it used to be free before; a tactic the Bank used to encourage people to use banking services. While this itself is not remarkable, the CEO explains it as a benevolent act of the Bank that has now backfired. This harkens to another facet of public service in this country; government institutions and officials infantilizing citizens and acting like they’re doing us all a favor when it’s just part of their job.
The questions asked by the reporter seemed to show that maybe he had the role of the Commercial Bank of Ethiopia and the National Bank of Ethiopia, the regulatory body, confused and I finally lost it when he started critiquing Bank employees’ work attire (he said they dressed like hooligans because ‘their ankles were out’!)
The full interview with the CEO of the Commercial Bank of Ethiopia, in Amharic, here.
That’s all for this week. I’ll be back next week with more updates!
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