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Speaking to the US Senate

On Monday the US Senate Foreign Affairs Committee will hold a closed meeting to hear a report-back from President Biden’s Horn of Africa Special Envoy, Jeffrey Feltman and other top officials.

The session is entitled: “Challenges and Opportunities for the United States in the Horn of Africa.”

Since it will be a closed meeting we will only learn what is being proposed from briefings after the event, but there are already some pointers.

First: Feltman has just come to the end of a long tour of the region. He travelled to Egypt, Eritrea, Sudan, and Ethiopia from May 4 to 13, 2021.

His public objectives were spelled out and can be seen in full below. Essentially, he was aiming to solve the war in Tigray, keep the Sudanese democracy programme on track, end the dispute between Ethiopia, Sudan and Egypt over the Nile as well as solve the Ethiopia-Sudan conflict over the al-Fashaga triangle. No mean objectives!

We know that his travels included Eritrea, where he sat down with President Isaias for three hours. He also held a meeting with the Ethiopian Foreign Minister.

Second: US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken has repeatedly spelled out American frustrations at Eritrea’s refusal to leave Tigray. He did so once again on Saturday, 15th May.

As Blinken said: “The continued presence of Eritrean forces in Tigray further undermines Ethiopia’s stability and national unity. We again call upon the Government of Eritrea to remove its forces from Tigray. Both Eritrean and Ethiopian authorities have repeatedly promised such a withdrawal, but we have seen no movement towards implementation.”

Third: It is now nearly two months since Ethiopian PM Abiy Ahmed said that Eritrean forces would leave Tigray. There is – as the Americans rightly observe – no sign of this happening. So how can it be brought about?

Sanctions – an essential part of the diplomatic toolkit

The only way of persuading President Isaias that the US and the EU mean business is to hit Eritrea’s sources of external funding.

The Eritrean diaspora has – for years – been forced to pay for President Isaias’s foreign adventures and subsidise his domestic repression. The notorious 2% tax is extracted from members of the diaspora. So too are taxes to pay for Covid and the military. Failure to pay up results in threats, abuse and a severing of all services by the Eritrean state.

The Dutch showed the way – expelling Eritrea’s top diplomat to make it clear that this would not be tolerated.

Canada took the same step in 2013. In 2007 the United States closed the Eritrean consulate in Oakland, California for funneling weapons to Islamists in Somalia.

The 2% tax – and how it has been extracted from Eritreans living abroad has been carefully studied. A Dutch report showed how this happened in Belgium, Germany, Italy, The Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and Britain.

The US and the EU need to lead the way: Stop the 2% tax and cut funding for Eritrea’s war in Tigray

Travel by U.S. Special Envoy for the Horn of Africa Jeffrey Feltman

MEDIA NOTE

OFFICE OF THE SPOKESPERSON

MAY 14, 2021

Source: US State Department

Special Envoy for the Horn of Africa Jeffrey Feltman has just completed his first visit to the region as U.S. Special Envoy for the Horn of Africa, traveling to Egypt, Eritrea, Sudan, and Ethiopia from May 4 to 13, 2021.

The Horn of Africa is at an inflection point, and the decisions that are made in the weeks and months ahead will have significant implications for the people of the region as well as for U.S. interests. The United States is committed to addressing the interlinked regional crises and to supporting a prosperous and stable Horn of Africa in which its citizens have a voice in their governance and governments are accountable to their citizens.

A sovereign and united Ethiopia is integral to this vision. Yet we are deeply concerned about increasing political and ethnic polarization throughout the country. The atrocities being perpetrated in Tigray and the scale of the humanitarian emergency are unacceptable. The United States will work with our international allies and partners to secure a ceasefire, end this brutal conflict, provide the life-saving assistance that is so urgently needed, and hold those responsible for human rights abuses and violations accountable. The crisis in Tigray is also symptomatic of a broader set of national challenges that have imperiled meaningful reforms. As Special Envoy Feltman discussed with Prime Minister Abiy and other Ethiopian leaders, these challenges can most effectively be addressed through an inclusive effort to build national consensus on the country’s future that is based on respect for the human and political rights of all Ethiopians. The presence of Eritrean forces in Ethiopia is antithetical to these goals. In Asmara, Special Envoy Feltman underscored to President Isaias Afwerki the imperative that Eritrean troops withdraw from Ethiopia immediately.

The political transition in Sudan is a once-in-a-generation opportunity that can serve as an example for the region. As Special Envoy Feltman underscored to Sudan’s leadership, the United States will continue to support that country’s ongoing transition to democracy so that Sudan can claim its place as a responsible regional actor after three decades as a destabilizing force. We are also committed to working with international partners to facilitate resolution of regional flash points—such as the dispute over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) and conflict on Sudan’s borders—so they do not undermine the fragile progress made since the revolution.

As Special Envoy Feltman discussed with leaders in Addis Ababa, Cairo, and Khartoum, Egypt and Sudan’s concerns over water security and the safety and operation of the dam can be reconciled with Ethiopia’s development needs through substantive and results-oriented negotiations among the parties under the leadership of the African Union, which must resume urgently. We believe that the 2015 Declaration of Principles signed by the parties and the July 2020 statement by the AU Bureau are important foundations for these negotiations, and the United States is committed to providing political and technical support to facilitate a successful outcome.

The Special Envoy will return to the region in short order to continue an intensive diplomatic effort on behalf of President Biden and Secretary Blinken.

Source: New York Times

Authorities have detained journalists without charges and revoked the accreditation of a reporter for The New York Times.

Credit…Simon Marks for The New York Times

By Abdi Latif Dahir and Declan Walsh

May 13, 2021

NAIROBI, Kenya — One Ethiopian journalist was taken away by police officers as his distraught 10-year-old daughter clung to him. Another fled the country after she said armed men ransacked her home and threatened to kill her.

And a foreign reporter working for The New York Times had his press credentials revoked, days after he interviewed victims of sexual assault and terrified residents in the conflict-torn Tigray region of northern Ethiopia.

Six months into the war in Tigray, where thousands have died amid reports of widespread human rights abuses, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed of Ethiopia has sought to quell critical coverage of the conflict with a campaign of arrests, intimidation and obstruction targeting the independent news media, according to human rights campaigners and media freedom organizations.

Credit…Ben Curtis/Associated Press

Mr. Abiy, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2019, is contending with an election scheduled for June 5 that is expected to cement his hold on power. But rights groups describe a climate of fear and repression that has eroded Ethiopia’s already-tenuous press freedoms and could undermine confidence in the outcome of the vote.

“It’s a sharply disappointing state of affairs given the hope and optimism of early 2018 when Mr. Abiy became prime minister,” said Muthoki Mumo, representative for sub-Saharan Africa for the Committee to Protect Journalists.

When Mr. Abiy came to power, Ethiopia was among the most repressive countries for journalists in Africa, and he quickly won global praise for a series of sweeping reforms. Journalists were freed from incarceration, hundreds of websites were unblocked and Ethiopia hosted the World Press Freedom Day celebrations for the first time.

Social media usage exploded. And for the first time in 14 years, Ethiopia did not have any journalists in prison.

But Mr. Abiy’s ambitious reforms quickly ran into stiff headwinds, including opposition from regional political parties and outbreaks of ethnic violence in several restive regions. His government began to revert to the old ways, shutting down the internet during political protests and detaining journalists under laws that had been introduced by the previous government.

When Mr. Abiy collected his Nobel Peace Prize in Norway in December 2019, he broke with tradition by not taking questions from the press. In his acceptance speech, he accused social media platforms of sowing discord in Ethiopia.

Credit…Spencer Platt/Getty Images

After Mr. Abiy began a military operation in Tigray on Nov. 4, hoping to oust a regional ruling party that had challenged his authority, press freedoms deteriorated further.

Within hours, the internet in Tigray was shut down and journalists were blocked from entering the region. Later, the authorities detained Ethiopians working in Tigray for international news outlets including the BBC, Agence-France Press, the Financial Times and The New York Times.

Since November, the Committee to Protect Journalists has documented the arrests of at least 10 journalists and media workers who were held for periods from a few days to two months related to their coverage of the conflict in Tigray.

Last week, government officials confirmed that they had revoked the accreditation of Simon Marks, an Irish reporter based in Ethiopia working for The New York Times.

In a war that has already caused thousands of deaths, displaced at least two million people and led to charges of ethnic cleansing, news media coverage has become a “very sensitive” topic for the government, said Befeqadu Hailu, an Ethiopian journalist imprisoned for 18 months by the previous regime.

In the early days of the fight, at least six Ethiopian reporters working for local media in Tigray were arrested. Later, the authorities turned against Ethiopians working with international news outlets. In December, Kumerra Gemechu, a cameraman with Reuters, was detained and held without charge for 12 days before being released.

Credit…via Reuters

In January, human rights groups accused the security forces of killing Dawit Kebede, a reporter who was shot dead in the Tigrayan capital of Mekelle, ostensibly for flouting the curfew.

In February, armed men ransacked the home in Addis Ababa of Lucy Kassa, a freelance reporter for the Los Angeles Times and other outlets. In an interview, Ms. Lucy, who has since fled to another country, said the men appeared to be government agents, knew what story she was working on and warned her to stop. They confiscated a laptop and flash drive that she said contained evidence that soldiers from the neighboring country of Eritrea were fighting in Tigray, though Ethiopia had insisted at the time that this was untrue.

The government said in a statement at the time that Ms. Lucy had not legally registered as a journalist.

In March, the Ethiopian government permitted several news organizations to travel to Mekelle, but then detained the Ethiopians working for them for several days.

Mr. Marks, who works for The Times and other publications, has reported from Ethiopia since 2019. In a letter revoking his accreditation on March 4, the Ethiopian Broadcasting Authority accused him of “fake news” and what it called “unbalanced” reporting about the conflict in Tigray.

A day earlier, Mr. Marks had returned to Addis Ababa from Tigray, where he interviewed civilians who described atrocities by Ethiopian and Eritrean soldiers, and women who said they suffered horrendous sexual assaults.

Credit…Simon Marks for The New York Times

That reporting was the basis of two stories published by The Times in the following weeks.

Last week, after appeals by The Times were declined, the head of the Ethiopian Broadcasting Authority confirmed Mr. Marks’s accreditation had been canceled at least until October. Officials told Mr. Marks that The Times’ coverage of Ethiopia had “caused huge diplomatic pressure” and that senior government officials had authorized the decision to cancel his papers.

“It is deeply disappointing that a Nobel Peace Prize recipient would try to silence an independent press,” said Michael Slackman, The Times’s assistant managing editor for international. “We encourage the government to rethink this authoritarian approach and instead work to foster a robust exchange of information. It can start by reissuing Mr. Marks’s credentials and freeing any journalist being detained.”

The next test of Ethiopia’s openness is likely to be the June 5 election, the first for Mr. Abiy since being appointed prime minister in 2018.

Billene Seyoum, a spokeswoman for Mr. Abiy, referred questions about Mr. Marks to the Ethiopian Broadcasting Authority.

In a telephone interview, Yonatan Tesfaye, the deputy head of the broadcast authority, confirmed that Mr. Marks’s credentials had been revoked. He added that while they did consult other government institutions, including law enforcement, the Ethiopian Broadcasting Authority made the decision independently.

He said the authority was also examining the work of Ethiopian journalists for potential violations of Ethiopian law.

“We want the media to take the context we are in and we want them to operate respecting the rule of law that the country has,” he said.