Ustaz Abubaker's Speech in Awolia Center on June 22, 2012 - YouTube: ""
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The Struggle For Freedom, Justice and Equality
Monday, July 23, 2012
Ethiopia: Protests in Addis Ababa Continue
Addis Ababa — Ethiopian police clashed with Muslim protesters on Saturday in Addis Ababa's west side after days of massive protest in the country's capital.
Clashes between protesters and riot police erupted on Saturday after police try to disperse the protesters who have been staging sit-ins and protests over the past week in Addis Ababa.
According to local sources, hundreds of protestors were arrested and many more detained for several hours, some even days before being released.
Some reports indicate that the riot police fired tear gas at protestors who in turn threw stones back at the riot police.
The Muslim demonstrators have been protesting about Muslims being marginalized in the Ethiopian government despite making up almost 1/3 of the Ethiopian population according to official statistics.
That number which is steadily increasing is predicted to make Muslims the majority population in the country by 2050.
Demonstrators have been holding mosque sit-ins and protests and according to some media outlets in between 500,000 to 1 million people staged protests leading up to and after the African Union Summit which was held last Monday.
There were reports of deaths in previous protests, however there have been no confirmations on any deaths in Saturday's protests.
Although some reporters have stated that the protests are as big as Egypt's revolutionary Tahrir Square protests, the Addis Ababa protests have not received much attention by Ethiopia state controlled television as well as international media.
Sunday, July 22, 2012
Ethiopian police clash with Muslim protesters, several arrested – The Express Tribune
ADDIS ABABA: Ethiopian police clashed on Saturday with scores of Muslims protesters complaining that the state is interfering in their religion, witnesses and officials said.
The protesters, some wearing masks, blocked the entrance of the Anwar Mosque in the west of the capital Addis Ababa and hurled stones at riot police who had surrounded the compound after noon prayers.
“Police broke inside the mosque and arrested many people, including several members of the (protest organising) committee. They also fired teargas at protesters outside,” said an activist who declined to be named for fear of reprisals.
Another witness said he had seen empty tear gas canisters strewn on the ground. It was not immediately possible to verify these reports.
Thousands of Muslims have staged sporadic street protests in the capital since late last year, arguing that the government is promoting an alien branch of Islam, the Al Ahbash sect, which is avowedly apolitical and has numerous adherents in the United States.
The government denies promoting Al Ahbash, but is determined to prevent Islamic militancy spilling over from neighbouring Sudan or lawless Somalia.
Around 60 percent of Ethiopians are Christian and 30 percent Muslim, mostly of the moderate, pragmatic Sufi tradition.
Diplomats and analysts say there could be potential for any militant groups to exploit sectarian divisions and trigger violence.
The government accuses “extremist elements” of sparking violence at the protests.
Government spokesman Shimeles Kemal said police had arrested ‘several’ people on Saturday but denied that police had used teargas.
“These were masked assailants from extremist groups that prevented mosque attendants from leaving the compound after the completion of noon prayers,” he said.
“They tried to incite violence, they threw stones and damaged property.”
Activists have reported several deaths during previous clashes, but no casualties were reported on Saturday.
Al Ahbash, also known as the Association of Islamic Charitable Projects, was founded in the early 1980s by Sheikh Abdullah al Harrari, an Ethiopian cleric who was forced to leave his country for Lebanon in 1950.
The protesters say the government is promoting the ideas of the group through Ethiopia’s highest Muslim body, the Supreme Council on Islamic Affairs, and preventing overdue elections that could bring alternative views onto the Council.
Shimeles denied that the government was trying to influence Muslim affairs. “Our constitution bans any government interference in religion,” he said.
Wednesday, July 18, 2012
The Battle of Damascus declared :General Daoud Rajha is killed
| The Syrian Defence minister has been killed and several other senior security officials wounded when a suicide bomber stroke the National Security building in Damascus during a meeting of Cabinet ministers and senior security officials. Syria state television said that General Daoud Rajha was killed in Wednesday's suicide bomb attack and that several other participants in a top-level meeting who were wounded in the blast and were to Al-Shami hospital in the capital for treatment.
Al Jazeera's Rula Amin, reporting from Beirut ,said that It had been confirmed that the minister of defence, Daoud Rajha, had been killed, while the minister of interior and the head of the National Security office had been critically wounded.
Activists contacted by telephone reported an increased security presence around a hospital near the site of the reported explosion in northern Damascus, which they said indicated that senior officials had been wounded.The explosion came as clashes beween the Syrian military and the Free Syrian Army in Damascus entered a fourth straight day, Citing the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, news agencies reported sounds of explosions on the outskirts of the Syrian capital on Wednesday. Fighting was also reported in the central district of al-Midan, where rebel fighters are holed up, and the state television reported a suicide bombing at the national security building. There were no immediate reports of casualties. More government forces and tanks were deployed in areas inside and around Damascus following the violence, activists said. The SOHR also said that more than 60 soldiers had been killed in clashes with the FSA fighters in the past 48 hours, but there was no independent confirmation of the claim as foreign media is barred from reporting inside Syria. "Between 40 and 50 soldiers of the regular Syrian forces were killed the day before yesterday [Monday] in fighting in Damascus, and at least 20 were killed yesterday," the Observatory's Rami Abdel Rahman told the AFP news agency. He added that forces of the presidential guard had deployed around the capital, but "they are not involved in the fighting" that erupted in several districts of the city on Sunday. Soldiers loyal to al-Assad have called on civilians in Damascus areas controlled by the rebels to "leave immediately" ahead of an attack to purge those areas of "terrorists", activists said. The rebels said on Tuesday they had intensified their offensive, declaring the latest phase of their offensive would "liberate" Damascus. A rebel spokesman said "victory is nigh". "We have transferred the battle from Damascus province to the capital. We have a clear plan to control the whole of Damascus. We only have light weapons, but it's enough,' said FSA spokesman Colonel Kassem Saadeddine. "Expect surprises," Saadeddine added, before adding later that rebels had downed a helicopter over Qaboon, although an activist in the district said there was "no foundation" to the report. The fighting came as Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary general, pressed leaders of Syria's major ally, China, to back tougher action to stop violence. But diplomats warned there is little chance the resolution will be adopted by a divided council. The key stumbling block is the Western demand for the resolution to impose non-military sanctions, which is tied to Chapter 7 of the UN Charter, and which could eventually pave the way for military force to end the conflict in Syria. Russia, another Syria ally with veto power at the Security Council, is reportedly opposed to any mention of non-military sanctions or Chapter 7, but the US and its European allies insist it must be included in a new resolution. Late on Tuesday, Russia called for consultations on the proposed resolution. Alexander Pankin, a Russian deputy ambassador, said after the meetings that any mention of Chapter 7 or sanctions were still a "red line for Moscow". Both Russia and China have previously vetoed Security Council resolutions seeking to take a hard line on the violence-wracked country. But Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, vowed earlier on Tuesday to do everything to support UN-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan's plan for ending the violence. Annan, who told Putin the violence had reached "unacceptable" proportions, arrived on Tuesday for his first meeting with the Kremlin chief since he won elections for a third term in office. "From the very start, from the first steps, we supported and continue to support your efforts aimed at restoring civil peace," Putin told Annan at the start of their talks. Annan replied that "the Syrian crisis is at a critical time" before the discussion was closed to the media. The future of Annan's three-month-old peace initiative, which was never implemented due to escalating violence, will be decided by the Security Council's Friday deadline. The council will determine whether to extend and enlarge the 300-observer UN mission, or wind it down. |
Thursday, June 21, 2012
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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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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Monday, June 18, 2012
Un Officer in Ethiopia accused of terrorism Supporting the Ogaden struggle
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"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.
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