Ethiopia: The Politics of Fear and Smear

by Alemayehu G. Mariam

2011: Dictatorship, corruption and the politics of fear and smear

In December 2011, I wrote a commentary entitled,“Ethiopia: Land of Blood or Land of Corruption?” contrasting two portraits of Ethiopia. At the time, the portrait painted by Transparency International (TI) (Corruption Index) and Global Financial Integrity (GFI) showed Ethiopia as a land blighted by  systemic corruption. GFI reported that “Ethiopia, which has a per-capita GDP of just US$365, lost US$11.7 billion to illicit financial outflows between 2000 and 2009. In 2009, illicit money leaving the economy totaled US$3.26 billion,

Ethiopia and Eritrea: Rising Tensions Amid New Opportunities for Engagement

by Jason Mosley, Associate Fellow, Africa Programme

The latest report from the United Nations Monitoring Group on Somalia and Eritrea has stirred tensions between Eritrea, Ethiopia and Somalia.

Eritrea has seized on a selective reading of the report to call for the lifting of UN imposed sanctions, a call already rebuffed by the Monitoring Group’s Coordinator. The diplomatic fallout is likely to continue as Ethiopia and its allies push for continued (or tightened) sanctions on Eritrea.

It is a sensitive time in the Horn of Africa. Tensions are rising along the region’s main political and security fault-line between Ethiopia and Eritrea. Ethiopia’s government has taken an increasingly bellicose tone towards its former province, perhaps signaling an increased willingness to push more actively for regime change in Eritrea. This would have major but uncertain security consequences across the region.

HRW: Somali Pro-Government Militias Killing Civilians

march 30/2012

Human Rights Watch has indicted pro-government militias in Somalia of carrying out executions and other critical rights abuses in areas formerly tranquil by al-Shabab. The organisation pronounced residents in “liberated” areas are now uncertain of that side they can trust.

View Somalia in a incomparable map

In a new news expelled Thursday, Human Rights Watch pronounced given Ethiopian infantry and Somali company groups suspended al-Shabab militants from a towns of Baidoa and Beletweyne, confidence has turn worse.

Eritrea is an easy aim for Ethiopia

March 20, 2012

Ethiopia’s infantry intrusion into beside Eritrea, reinforced by weekend follow-up attacks, has perceived remarkably tiny general courtesy – and no undisguised condemnation, in a west during least. Britain pronounced it was “deeply concerned” though declined to condemnation Addis Ababa. The US piously urged “restraint”. Eritrea’s approach that a UN confidence legislature retaliate Ethiopia has been met by noisy silence.