Secure Da Bag
Veteran
What does Israel have to have this much pull with African nations?
The Horn of Africa Current Events Thread
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Sudan making secret contacts with Israel. They were recently removed of the US sanctions list with the help of Israel and KSA. Now theyre trying to get remove the state supporter of terrorism designation they have.
Wild 180 from a few years ago, when they had good relations with Iran
@FAH1223 @Misreeya
UAE was also lobbying hard for Sudan. Otaiba being the schmoozer that he is was going around town to persuade the Trump admin to get rid of the 20 year old sanctions
thatrapsfan
Superstar
Wouldnt say its pull per-se, but theyve put many resources ( defence, aid, and tech) towards re-establishing diplomatic ties with countries in Subsaharan Africa.
As their main objective is greater legitimacy in international forums like the UN, theyve been trying to sell African states (and others) that their interests are aligned and their previous diplomatic stances are a loss of advantage.
Its a case that can be more compelling with the Gulf aligning more closely with Israel in strategic aims.
The Odum of Ala Igbo
Hail Biafra!
Sudan making secret contacts with Israel. They were recently removed of the US sanctions list with the help of Israel and KSA. Now theyre trying to get remove the state supporter of terrorism designation they have.
Wild 180 from a few years ago, when they had good relations with Iran
@FAH1223 @Misreeya
Sudan is a whore. They'll make deals with whoever will give them the most money
thatrapsfan
Superstar
The promise and peril of Ethiopia’s democratic revolution
@JDH
If any single event sums up the confusion, danger and enormous opportunity posed by the change sweeping across Ethiopia it was when dozens of armed soldiers marched on the office of Abiy Ahmed, the new prime minister, in October. As the troops moved closer, the government shut down the internet, leaving the capital awash with rumours but little information. It looked to many Ethiopians like a coup.
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But when the soldiers arrived, Abiy approached them and listened to their complaints. Within a day videos were circulating showing the 42-year-old former army officer doing press-ups with the grinning troops. Abiy later said the protest had been part of a plot to kill him by opponents of his reforms. Yet with boldness and charm he turned a possible military coup into a public-relations one.
Across Ethiopia, Africa’s second-most-populous country, scenes that were unimaginable a year ago are now commonplace. On a recent Friday morning in Hawassa, a regional capital, crowds of young men draped themselves in the white, red and blue flags of the Sidama Liberation Movement, a rebel group. Chanting and singing, they gathered to welcome its leaders home from exile.
Farther along the highway to the capital, as the road crosses an invisible ethnic border, the colours of the flag change to yellow, green and red—those of the Oromo Liberation Front, another rebel group that has been allowed to return and contest elections, scheduled for 2020.
If the democratic uprisings that swept across the states of the former Soviet Union in the early 2000s were “colour revolutions”, then Ethiopia’s counts as a multicoloured one, with flags of many hues representing its more than 80 ethnic groups.
There is no mistaking the excitement that has gripped the country since April, when Abiy took office and embarked on the most radical liberalisation in Ethiopia’s history. He has made peace with neighbouring Eritrea, freed thousands of political prisoners, welcomed back armed opposition groups and promised to open up the state-dominated economy.
But he faces big challenges. As he lifts the heavy hand of the state, ethnic nationalism and violence are spreading. The economy is slowing. Much will depend on whether Abiy can use his enormous popularity to unite the country and shepherd it towards fair elections.
No dirge for the Derg
Ethiopia has had two previous revolutions. Neither worked out well. In 1974 students and soldiers toppled the feudal empire of Haile Selassie and replaced it with the Derg, a Marxist junta that forced peasants onto collective farms, where they starved. Seventeen years later the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (eprdf), a coalition of ethnic liberation movements, overthrew the Derg.
Although professing to be democratic and representing all of Ethiopia’s ethnic groups, the eprdf ruled harshly and was dominated by Tigrayans, who are 6% of the population. It adopted a constitution that promised to protect human rights, then ran roughshod over it, shooting or arresting protesters and installing party loyalists at even the most local levels of government. The former strongman, Meles Zenawi, who died in 2012, boasted that the eprdf’s “writ runs in every village”.
Because Ethiopia’s economy expanded rapidly, many came to see it as a model of authoritarian development, similar to China’s. gdp grew by an average of 10% a year over the past 15, the government says. That figure is probably overstated, but the growth, from a low base, was certainly swift. In recent years, however, questions have been raised about whether the Ethiopian model is sustainable. Much of its economic growth came from state spending on roads, industrial parks, giant dams and Africa’s biggest airline. This was financed largely through borrowing abroad. The binge has pushed foreign-currency debt to the equivalent of 350% of annual export earnings. The imf says it is at high risk of “debt distress”. Foreign exchange is scarce. Inflation is 14%.
The authoritarian regime also proved fragile. Oromos, who are about a third of the population, long resented the Tigrayans’ control of the government. Protests, which began in late 2014 in Oromia, gathered pace a year later after elections in which the eprdf so thoroughly suppressed opposition parties that it won 95% of the vote and all the seats in parliament. A ten-month-long state of emergency was imposed in October 2016 after protesters burned foreign-owned factories and blocked roads.
The crisis sparked a coup within the eprdf. Oromos aligned with Amharas, who are about a quarter of the population (and ruled the roost under Haile Selassie and the Derg), and shunted aside the Tigrayan elite. Abiy was named chairman of the party and the country’s first Oromo prime minister.
Since taking charge, he has ordered the release of thousands of political prisoners. For the first time in 13 years there are no journalists in jail. Censorship of the media has ceased. The army and police, who shot scores of people in 2015-16, now rarely use lethal force to contain unrest. Confrontations between them and protesters have declined by more than 80% since April.
Abiy the reformer
The shift away from authoritarianism has been accompanied by a push towards democracy. Abiy has promised a free and fair election. He nominated a respected opposition figure to head the electoral board and a renowned human-rights lawyer as chief justice of the supreme court. Experts are rewriting the statutes that all but criminalised peaceful opposition.
But the revolution risks spinning out of control. The wave of protests that brought Abiy to power also exposed the degree to which many Ethiopians do not regard their government as legitimate. District officials across Oromia and Amhara were often the first targets of violent unrest before Abiy took office. Tens of thousands have been replaced, but many are powerless in the face of young protesters. “The lower administrative structure has almost completely collapsed,” says Jawar Mohammed, an Oromo activist with vast clout.
In the vacuum young men have taken to vigilantism. “Every citizen should be a policeman,” says Abdi Abkulkdar, a leader of an Oromo youth organisation in Shashamene, a town near Hawassa. In August a mob there lynched a man wrongly suspected of carrying a bomb.
If they go, there will be trouble
A greater threat to Ethiopia’s stability comes from ethnic tension. Since 1995, when the current constitution came into force, ethnicity has been a central feature of politics. The constitution created nine ethnically based, semi-autonomous regions, but also gave each of Ethiopia’s more than 80 recognised groups the right to form its own region or to secede. In practice the eprdf kept the federation together by shooting anyone who tried to break away. Now separatists are trying again.
In recent weeks four ethnic groups have demanded plebiscites on self-rule. There have also been attacks on minority groups and ethnic cleansing, which is made easier by the fact that in most regions ethnicity is recorded on identity cards. “They had a list, they called my name,” says a middle-aged Welayta man, whose house was destroyed by a Sidama mob in June. Several Welayta men were burned alive and 2,500 were forced from their homes in Hawassa, a cosmopolitan city in the heart of what the Sidama claim is their homeland.
Almost 1m mostly ethnic Gedeos, a small group living south of Hawassa, have been homeless since April. In recent weeks hundreds of thousands have been displaced along the border between Oromia and Benishangul-Gumuz. More than 1.2m Ethiopians were forced from their homes in the first half of this year.
Some are stockpiling weapons. “The people in this region are buying machine-guns like crazy,” says a young man in Bahir Dar, the capital of Amhara. Young Tigrayans have also been calling for weapons and training. “The risk of chaos, anarchy and state collapse are within the realm of possibility,” says an official.
Abiy may see no choice but to use the police and army to separate the factions and restore order. A more lasting solution is likely to involve strengthening state institutions. That would mean curbing the powers of his own office and ensuring that the state itself is bound by the law. At times, though, Abiy has acted as if he is above it. In August he deposed the tyrannical president of Ethiopia’s troubled Somali region. This was welcomed, but unconstitutional. In September the police in Addis Ababa arbitrarily arrested thousands of young men suspected of being involved in violence. Abiy later apologised.
He also needs to revive the economy so as to create jobs for millions of young school-leavers. Many now have nothing better to do than join ethnic youth groups, such as the Oromo “Qeerroo” or Sidama “Ejjeetto”, which look like militias-in-waiting. A good place to start economic reform would be to allow competitors to Ethio Telecom, a state-owned monopoly that is responsible for one of Africa’s lowest rates of phone and internet penetration. He should also lift restrictions on banks that force them to give cheap loans to the government while starving private firms of credit.
Most of all Abiy must show Ethiopians that democracy need not mean anarchy. “Historically we are not used to reforms,” he has said. “All we know is revolutions.”
The Odum of Ala Igbo
Hail Biafra!
I'm unsure how Ethiopia can become a stable democracy given the existence of ethnic political parties. shyt reminds me of Yugoslavia, but on a grander scale
thatrapsfan
Superstar
Every day another ethnic group wants their own state.
The Odum of Ala Igbo
Hail Biafra!
Damn
Abiy is still very unclear to me. Btw what do you make of this?
I think this might strengthen the claims of those people that say the country been "neo-colonized" (or whatever the term is) and the political economy is now dictated by usa and its regional proxies like Saudi. Why is he speaking about this at all and is Ethiopia about to get involved in the situation? "You've destroyed every corner of your country"
seems like he's blaming the yemenis
Damn
Abiy is still very unclear to me. Btw what do you make of this?
I think this might strengthen the claims of those people that say the country been "neo-colonized" (or whatever the term is) and the political economy is now dictated by usa and its regional proxies like Saudi. Why is he speaking about this at all and is Ethiopia about to get involved in the situation? "You've destroyed every corner of your country"
Neocolonialism took Ethiopia decades ago, as with most African countries. Don’t see why he’s even commenting on the situation given that there’s a great deal of issues still to resolve in his own country. Hell, you still have migrants going to Yemen over staying in Ethiopia. Is Abiy acting as a sock puppet for UAE/KSA in this situation or Qatar/Iran?
Just accept refugees, fix the problems at home, shut the fukk up, and let MBS destroy himself in Yemen.
Oromia is gonna be so poor.
The lack of political education on the ground is far too obvious and these a$$holes that go off to the west and get degrees come home to create a new aristocracy based on the political bullshyt they tell people that have been poor and disenfranchised for years.
As much as Abiy has been a revelation of sort, he cannot escape the fact that this government he represents was what brought on the ethnic-nationalism, this government was the one selling off the lands of vulnerable groups to foreign firms, it doesn’t matter who the face of it is the government in place either needs wholesale reformation or needs to be replaced with a proper political system that can address the needs of the people.
I’ll gladly xerox passages of Kwame Nkrumah’s writings on neocolonialism. These people don’t even realize they’re fukkin themselves over.
thatrapsfan
Superstar
Damn
Abiy is still very unclear to me. Btw what do you make of this?
I think this might strengthen the claims of those people that say the country been "neo-colonized" (or whatever the term is) and the political economy is now dictated by usa and its regional proxies like Saudi. Why is he speaking about this at all and is Ethiopia about to get involved in the situation? "You've destroyed every corner of your country"
KSA and the UAE underwrote the reconciliation between Eritrea and Ethiopia
Both countries clearly owe a debt to them and this seems like a gesture at their behest. That being said, I dont see Ethiopia getting involved in the conflict at all, aside from the symbolic or diplomatic.Also its interesting how this statement got a lot of attention, while Eritrea taking even stronger and practical stances alinged with the Saudis has gone relatively unnoticed
( use of Assab, cutting off relations with Iran and Qatar)That been happened thoKSA and the UAE underwrote the reconciliation between Eritrea and Ethiopia
Also its interesting how this statement got a lot of attention, while Eritrea taking even stronger and practical stances alinged with the Saudis has gone relatively unnoticed
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