Melese Zenawie Was at Los Cabos while Many want him dead but may be sick ?

G20 Los Cabos: First Impressions from an ILO perspective - YouTube: ""

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Mombasa secessionist in Kenya Lessons from East Africa’s warriors

cobbo@ke.nationmedia.com 
In recent months, the Mombasa Republican Council (MRC) has been in the news quite a bit. The MRC is seeking secession - or is it independence? - for a chunk of coastal Kenya.I am not interested in whether the MRC have a case or not. Rather, I have been fascinated by the business of secession (yes, it is political business) for many years, especially the factors that determine whether it fails for succeeds.

East Africa is interesting, because it seems the ripe region to set up secessionist shop. It has produced 99 per cent of Africa breakaway states/territories of the last 25 years: Eritrea, South Sudan, Puntland and Somaliland. Secessionist sentiment is up and about in Zanzibar, Darfur region of Sudan, the Ogaden province of Ethiopia, and in Democratic Republic of Congo.

These cases tell us that secession is very expensive business. It only comes cheap when it is “opportunistic” secession; as in the case of Somaliland, and Puntland (which has not said it intends to break away permanently) where a region moves off on its own because the central government has collapsed and can’t keep it in the fold.

Otherwise secession in all other cases in our region has been won through the barrel  of the gun. South Sudan became independent after more than 20 years  of war in which 2.5 million were killed. Eritrea won back its statehood after a 27-year war, part of the “Ethiopian Civil War” in which at least 1.4 million were killed. In Nigeria, the Biafra war last just three years, and ended in failure. In that short period, more than 2 million people died!

So it seems that because  you will, anyway, lose more than a million people fighting to be independent, secessionist folk need to be at least three million. That number ensures that you are able to produce enough people to replenish the ranks of the fighters, and to have the civilian infrastructure to support the campaign, without everyone being killed off.

If you are to have an independent state, you need warm bodies to populate it. It makes no sense if they are all dead at the end. Going by this, the picture is not very bright for the MRC. Someone who is knowledgeable about Coastal Kenya tells me the “MRC base is less than 500,000”. Those are terrible numbers to work with.

The second factor necessary for successful secession is history. You need to have a good or emotional story. Either your territory was independent before and had a proud past, like Eritrea; or independent like South Sudan, but also with a highly emotional narrative that grabs international attention—a “Muslim” north oppressing a “Christian” south; or a racist northern Arab elite tormenting a large “black” southern politician. The differentiations are nonsensical in strict scientific terms, but nevertheless they evoked a lot of emotion.

The MRC’s strongest card is marginalisation of the coast, but the coastal strip doesn’t have a sexy history and does conjure up an emotional modern-day narrative. 

Then, successful secessionists need the clock.  All successful secessions have taken more than 20 years of struggle. This creates a large number of refugees and exiles that scatter to the corners of the world and create the bodywork that enables secession to succeed. The Eritrean Diaspora was successful enough, it was able to raise money to fund the war by the Eritrean Peoples’ Liberation Front (EPLF) for years.

The South Sudanese were able to mobilise rich conservative Christian constituencies in the west to support their cause, and to draw in countries like Yoweri Museveni’s Uganda to give the Sudan Peoples’ Liberation Army military support.

The MRC base of “less than 500,000” is not enough to establish a critical Diaspora constituency. This doesn’t mean they should give up. Rather, the MRC should do what all groups that are hopeless outnumbered, outgunned, and out-moneyed do; negotiate, persuade, charm, bribe, and work the system to your advantage.

No man understood this better than the African-American civil rights leader Martin Luther King (MLK) when he called for non-violent protest. The radicals mocked him, and he was assassinated. But black America lived to fight another day. In 2008, America elected Barack Obama, its first African-American president, 40 years after the death of MLK. This is where the violent and non-violent takes are similar - they both take forever.
Mr Onyango-Obbo is the Executive Editor of the Nation Media Group’s Africa and Digital Media Division

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Un Officer in Ethiopia accused of terrorism Supporting the Ogaden struggle

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United Nations faced up to 10 years in jail after a court in Addis Ababa found him guilty on Monday of "participating in a terrorist organisation".

"The defendant has not convinced us that he did not commit a crime... he's guilty," Judge Mulugeta Kidane said.

Abdurahman Sheikh Hassan, who was based in Ethiopia's troubled south-eastern Ogaden region, was charged last July with having links to the Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF), a secessionist rebel group.

He is charged along with Sherif Baido, whom the charge sheet lists as a senior member of the ONLF and was convicted on the same charge in absentia, according to Kidane.

The two men face five to ten years in prison. The court is expected to deliver a sentence on Friday.

Hassan was arrested after negotiating the release of two UN World Food Programme (WFP) officers kidnapped in the Ogaden.

Evidence

Judge Mulugeta said defence witnesses failed to prove Hassan did not have links to ONLF members.

The key evidence used by the prosecution was recordings of phone conversations between Hassan and his co-defendant.

The judge said the voices of Hassan and Baido had been matched to those on the tape after it was analysed by the cybercrimes unit.

"It has been proved by the cybercrimes section that it was their voices," he said.

Hassan - an ethnic Somali who does not speak Ethiopia's main language, Amharic - stood expressionless as the judge read the verdict in Amharic. He appeared in court wearing a clean white shirt and holding Islamic prayer beads.

The prosecution called for the court to impose a strong sentence against Hassan, saying his case should serve as a warning to would-be offenders.

"We want the court to take this as a really serious offence, he has a connection to the ONLF and he is a real danger to the country," the prosecutor told the court.

Leniency asked

But Hassan's lawyer Netsanet Getahun asked the court to be lenient towards her client.

"My client hasn't harmed anyone, he hasn't done any concrete damage... we want the court to be considerate because he has already served one year in jail," she said, adding that Hassan suffers from high blood pressure and heart disease and has a large family to support.

Rights groups have criticized Ethiopia's 2009 "anti-terrorism" legislation for being far-reaching and used to stifle peaceful dissent and freedom of expression. Close to 200 people, including opposition members and journalists, were charged under the law in 2011.

In December, two Swedish journalists were sentenced to 11 years in prison after an Ethiopian court found them guilty of supporting ONLF rebels in the Ogaden.

Hassan was arrested in the remote Ogaden region, where ONLF militants have been fighting for independence since 1984, claiming they have been marginalised by Addis Ababa.

Oil and gas reserves in the region have brought hopes of wealth but also fears of increased conflict.

Ethiopianism, EPPF The Exiled Solomon Kasse Salelew "Aberaraw" - YouTube

Ethiopianism, EPPF The Exiled Solomon Kasse Salelew "Aberaraw" - YouTube: ""

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Ethiopian Muslims demonstration against 'Ahbashism Campaign' Aljazeera

Aljazeera report 19/May/2012 : Ethiopian Muslims demonstration against 'Ahbashism Campaign' - YouTube: ""

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Rebels pledge to try Saif in their mountain stronghold

BY DAMIEN MCELROY, THE DAILY TELEGRAPH MAY 2, 2012

• STORY
• PHOTOS ( 1 )

Saif al-Islam Gaddafi is seen sitting in a plane in Zintan November 19, 2011.

Photograph by: Ismail Zitouny , Reuters

The Libyan commander holding Saif al-Islam Gadhafi has declared he will stage a trial of the dictator's son in the remote mountaintop town where he has been held since his capture last November.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) is demanding the extradition of Colonel Moammar Gadhafi's presumed heir to The Hague to face war crimes charges for giving orders to kill unarmed civilians during the uprising against his father's regime.

Libya is appealing for the right to stage Saif's trial in a Libyan courthouse. Osama al-Jueili, Libya's defence minister and head of the militia holding Saif in the town of Zintan, added to confusion over his fate by insisting that his prisoner would face trial in his town, not the capital Tripoli. "I think he will be tried in Zintan," Mr Jueili told The Daily Telegraph. "Zintan is part of Libya, the country where the crimes he is charged with were committed. In the history of war crimes it is not necessary to hold these courts in the capital."

The comments will exacerbate fears that Saif will face victor's justice and inevitable execution.

Despite serving as defence minister in Libya's transitional government, Mr Jueili poured scorn on suggestions that secure facilities could be constructed in Tripoli to conduct a trial.

"Libya is facing a very dangerous period where the enemies of stability are unknown but are in front of us. In this situation we submit Saif to the prosecutor but we also insist on his security," he said.

Zintan's leadership has established an elaborate mechanism to protect 39-year-old Saif from potential attack. The only outsiders to see him must be granted permission by Abdelaziz al-Hasadi, Libya's prosecutor general. But access is so zealously guarded that Saif has not met a defence lawyer. Only the ICC, Red Cross, his doctors and a human rights campaigner have successfully secured meetings.

A dusty outpost stretching along a ridge of the Nafusa mountains 150 miles south of Tripoli, Zintan's most prominent features are an old Italian villa and brutalist telecommunication tower.

The town, which has a population of 16,000, briefly boasted a hotel last August when it was the main staging post for attacks on the fraying coastal defences of Gaddafi's regime, but even that has reverted to its former use as a private medical clinic.

The rudimentary facilities would not bear the strains of a trial that would attract dozens of legal observers and an international media onslaught.

"A trial of this importance and complexity requires experienced jurists to ensure compliance with international standards," said Fred Abrahams, a researcher for Human Rights Watch who met Saif in December. "The Zintanis shouldn't still be holding Saif al-Islam, let alone trying him."

But local officials are keen to stress its advantages over the chaos of the capital.

"We think we have proved to the world that Saif is safe in our hands and this is very important for Libya," said a spokesman for Zintan's government. "Saif must be tried in Libya, not killed. We in Zintan are showing the world that Libya is a democracy."

Saif, a graduate of the London School of Economics, is frequently moved between a handful of facilities that boast modern furnishings, adequate catering and exercise suites. He has access to reading materials, but is not allowed television, computers or Internet.

Ahmad Ammar, the leader of the unit that captured Saif, said he remained determined to stand by the pledge he made when seizing the dictator's son in the Obari oasis in southern Libya last year. "I stood in front of him with a gun in my hand and I said, 'understand this is no longer your time or your father's time. If you do so and submit to your conditions, no one will harm you.' He has done and I will keep my side of the bargain."

Read more:http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/Rebels+pledge+Saif+their+mountain+stronghold/6555060/story.html#ixzz1ttGAOpAI

Pakistani among five farmworkers killed in Ethiopia | DAWN.COM

– File Photo by AP

ADDIS ABABA: An official says gunmen attacked a commercial farm in Ethiopia’s western Gambella region and killed five workers.

Government spokesman Shimeles Kemal said Sunday that the attackers wounded nine people as they shot indiscriminately late Saturday at workers on the vast farm. The property is owned by Mohammed Al-Amoudi, an Ethiopian-born Saudi businessman who is among the world’s richest men.

He said that among the dead were four Ethiopians and a Pakistani national. Five Pakistanis were among the wounded.

The official said six of the suspected assailants are now in police custody and that it is still unclear why the farm was targeted.

The farm produces cash crops such as rice.