ETHIOPIA: Ethiopia-Somalia Dispute Ends & more – 12th Dec 2024

Salaam salaam from BA! This is the Rorshok Ethiopia Update from the 12th of December twenty twenty-four. A quick summary of what's going down in Ethiopia.

Kicking off this edition, on Wednesday the 11th, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed went to Turkey’s capital, Ankara and met with President Erdogan to discuss various bilateral issues. However, the big news came the next day as news broke out that Ethiopia and Somalia had reached a deal, which Turkey brokered, to end the feud and agreed to work together to afford landlocked Ethiopia sea access.

It turned out that Somalia’s president Hassan Sheikh Mohamud was also in Turkey to make the deal happen. President Erdogan praised the deal, dubbing it a historic reconciliation. According to the agreement, by June next year, a commercial maritime arrangement will allow Ethiopia to use a sea outlet.

This ended an almost a year-long dispute between the two countries after Ethiopia signed an agreement with Somaliland to gain a sea outlet, which angered Somalia.

Now let’s finish a story from last week that ended on a cliffhanger. We told you that right after the Supreme Court ruled the release of Taye Dendea, the former state minister of peace, on bail, masked men detained him and took him to the Federal Investigation Bureau. Well, on Thursday the 5th, a day after he was detained, he was released. He finally reunited with his family after a year-long stay in jail without a conviction.

Prosecutors had charged him with inciting violence and spreading anti-peace propaganda, as he criticized the government mainly on social media. However, the High Court acquitted him, saying the prosecution’s evidence was not enough.

Even though they granted him bail for another charge accusing him of possession of unauthorized weapons, he will have to go to court to argue his case.

Such detentions raise questions of human rights, speaking of which, on Tuesday the 10th, the Human Rights Commission expressed concerns over rising cases of forced conscription, especially in the Oromia region in the center of Ethiopia, after conducting an independent investigation. The Commission also said that members of the armed forces are forcefully conscripting not only adults, but children too.

It added that government officers and members of the armed forces are engaged in forceful conscription for two main reasons - to reach their minimum recruitment quota and to ask the families of the forcefully conscripted for ransom money.

The interim Commissioner said officers engaged in forcefully conscripting civilians should be held accountable and that recruitment should be conducted only through the military’s guidelines and the civilians’ willingness.

Miles away from the Oromia region, residents of the West Gojam zone of the Amhara region in the northwest said youth movement Fano militants killed thirty-seven district officials on Friday the 6th. The region’s peace and security bureau confirmed this and added that Fano militants had detained the murdered officials for almost two months along with sixty more civilians and government workers. The zonal administration added to these reports saying the militants had demanded ransom payment - one million birr per person, which is eight thousand US dollars.

Recall that the government and Fano are in a protracted conflict that has lasted over a year now. No significant progress has been made to resolve the conflict peacefully.

Speaking of militants, a wing that separated from the rebel group Oromo Liberation Army (or OLA) said it signed a peace agreement with the Oromia regional government on Friday the 6th. The militants said the conflict with the government has only harmed citizens without any benefits and that’s why they’re laying down arms. Though promising, the agreement isn’t expected to end the conflict with the OLA because the head of the group said the militants who signed it were dismissed from their ranks months ago.

On Sunday the 8th, the militants who agreed with the Oromia government were in a celebratory mood and let their guns ring while they were heading to rehab centers (which is mandatory after laying down arms), causing residents from the capital, Addis, to panic when they heard the gunfire. The city’s police commission issued an apology for the fear and disturbance the gunfire may have caused and said that it would do its best to make sure that similar incidents won’t happen again.

Next up, in the West Omo zone of the South West region, government employees told media outlets this week that they’re suffering because they haven’t received three months of wages. These employees said they’re currently unable to afford bare necessities such as food and rent, with some of them resorting to other temporary jobs to cope with the situation. Some say they’ve been threatened with disciplinary measures for bringing up the late payment issue.

This isn’t news or limited to the west Omo zone or the South West region with other newly established regional governments such as central and southern Ethiopia unable or unwilling to pay their worker's salaries due as early as August last year.

In an update to a story from a previous show, two weeks ago, we told you that the government banned three civil society organizations citing threats to national interests and lack of political neutrality — a move that other local and international civil society organizations criticized. Well, on Wednesday the 11th, the Authority for Civil Society Organizations sent a letter to the banned institutions notifying them that it had lifted the ban without citing reasons.

The concerned institutions say they think the ban was lifted because the Authority was unable to justify the suspension but they denounced it nevertheless calling it an attempt to restrict civic space.

In business news, mining and exploration company Akobo, which is currently mining gold in the Gambella region in Western Ethiopia, announced that it is preparing to export gold after producing thirteen kilograms in the past two months. The company has waited a long while, fourteen years, looking for gold in the area and only recently began production. It said it has plans to expand into other mining areas and has been selling the gold it produced so far to the National Bank, grossing in a hundred and twenty million birr, which is almost a million US dollars.

We’ve got more business updates from the capital, where the Amhara Bank held its annual shareholders meeting on Tuesday the 10th. The Bank’s executives told shareholders that the bank had bounced back from a difficult twenty twenty-two/twenty twenty-three fiscal year when it registered a loss of almost two hundred million birr, which is over a million US dollars. In the twenty twenty-three/twenty twenty-four fiscal year, the company raked in over five hundred and twenty million birr, which is more than four million US dollars in profit after taxes.

Shareholders were glad to hear that profit per dividend has risen to over eight percent with this number set to grow next year. Even though the Bank is new to the banking business, it has a lot of shareholders - over a hundred and eighty thousand.

From banks to schools, as the Ministry of Education announced on Monday the 9th that it will increase the daily meal budget for university students from twenty-two birr, which is about seventeen US cents, to a hundred birr, which is eighty US cents, with plans to implement uniform meal menus.

Officials at the Ministry said the decision comes after the results of a study by stakeholders on the rise of food prices. Universities have struggled to provide meals for their students because of the low budget and although the increase isn’t set to resolve the problem completely, officials hope that it will help.

And to close off this episode, some news about the Ethiopian Airlines. The largest African carrier announced on Tuesday the 10th that it has taken delivery of its second Airbus A350-one thousand, a massive, top-of-the-line passenger aircraft. Recall that the carrier received its first-ever A350-one thousand a month ago, with two more expected to arrive in Addis soon. The state-owned enterprise said the aircraft will boost medium and long-haul flight operations.

Aaand that’s it for this week! Thank you for joining us!

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Ciao!