Negotiations Fall Apart & more – 23rd Nov 2023

Salaam salaam from BA! This is the Rorshok Ethiopia Update from the 23rd of November twenty twenty-three A quick summary of what's going down in Ethiopia.

In a follow-up to a story we covered in a previous update…

Last week peace talks to end the protracted war between the federal government and the Oromo Liberation Army (or OLA) were well underway, and there was progress. The talks that started with military leaders matured, and the federal government sent top political officials to Tanzania, where the negotiations were being held. Sadly, however, on Tuesday the 21st, the Federal Government’s Communication Service announced that this round of talks concluded without an agreement. Allegedly, the OLA wants the negotiations to grant the army power, but the federal government doesn't want to concede. The executive said it is committed to finding a peaceful solution but will continue to enforce the law and the constitution. It also thanked mediators— the US, Norway, and Kenya— which contributed to the success of the talks.

From one conflict to another. The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights issued a statement saying that earlier this month, the Ethiopian National Defense Force launched a drone strike in the Amhara region and killed at least twenty civilians. It expressed its concern over these strikes and other acts of violence affecting civilians. Recall that the government and a youth militia movement dubbed Fano have been fighting all over the region since August this year.

Unfortunately, all this fighting began even before the country could recover from previous conflicts. The government had formed the National Rehabilitation Commission to rehabilitate ex-fighters from eight regional states. Recently, the Commission told the Ethiopian News Agency that it had registered almost four hundred thousand former combatants and needs almost fifty billion birr or 850 million US dollars for the ex-soldiers' rehabilitation.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed was in Germany’s capital Berlin to participate in the G20 Africa Investment Summit. On Monday the 20th, he met with Olaf Scholz, Germany’s Chancellor. They talked about bilateral and regional matters. Abiy said that they have agreed to expand cooperation in clean energy, fertilizer production, foreign direct investment, and regional security issues.

After PM Abiy returned to Ethiopia, on Wednesday the 22nd, he met with a top government official of another allied nation - Salvador Valdez Mesa, the Vice President of Cuba. After their meeting, the Prime Minister’s Office said that ‘the two sides explored strengthened cooperation in the medical sector, tourism services, education and sugar industries.’

Abiy was in the news again but this story involves the African Development Bank. The Bank said that two of its employees were assaulted and detained on Tuesday, the 31st of October, without any explanation. The Bank said that PM Abiy immediately ordered the release of the staff and the launch of an investigation. The Bank also said that it has lodged an official complaint with government authorities and dubbed the debacle as ‘a very serious diplomatic incident’ because the detention of the bank’s staff were allegedly unwarranted.

The long week didn’t end there for the Prime Minister as he was in the audience during the Ministry of Revenue's first quarter report. The Ministry announced that it has collected more than a hundred billion birr or almost two billion US dollars in the first quarter of this fiscal year - a ninety-nine percent execution rate. The Ministry said that digitization efforts contributed to this high execution rate and reiterated that it plans to collect more than five hundred billion birr or almost ten billion US dollars by the end of the fiscal year.

The House of People’s Representatives, which is the chief legislator, voted to enact a law that re-establishes the Ombudsman Institution. The House’s Democratic Affairs Standing Committee head explained that the new law grants the institution’s investigators immunity similar to parliament members and Human Rights Commission employees. He added that granting immunity to the Ombudsman’s investigators became important because certain entities, like the police, were intervening in the institution’s investigations, forcing inspectors to stop investigating. The new law also grants the institution the power to inspect private limited and share companies. Before, it could only investigate government entities. The head committee said that this legislation was necessary because seventy-five percent of complaints brought to the Ombudsman last year were against private entities.

Speaking of the parliament, the presidents of the Federal Supreme Court and the Federal First Instance Courts appeared before the House Committee on Legal and Justice Affairs for their first quarter reports. The Federal Supreme Court’s President said that unless wages and benefits are amped up for judges, it will become difficult to recruit new judges and retain those who are working. He also talked about how a directive that controls judges’ social media use is in the works. This will limit what the judges can and cannot say on social media especially regarding the judiciary. On the other hand, the President of the First Instance Courts said that in the previous Ethiopian year, almost two hundred and fifty judges resigned from their position and more than forty left in this year’s first quarter alone.

In other news, Ethiopian Airlines continues to broaden its horizons as it announced on Monday the 20th that it will fly to London’s Gatwick Airport three times a week. The Airline has been flying to London Heathrow for over fifty years now and currently flies to Heathrow every day. Once the airline begins flying to Gatwick, it will operate ten weekly flights to London.

Ethio Telecom and its partners, the Ministry of Trade and Regional Integration, the Fuel and Energy Authority and the Fuel Supply Enterprise jointly announced a centralized digital system that’ll regulate the fuel supply chain. Regulators will now be able to track fuel supply in real time as it moves from the port to destinations, a far cry from the formerly used manual means of tracking. Authorities say this will help curb the disruption of the fuel supply chain and the contraband of fuel. Ethiopia imports fuel from Bahrain with the limited amount of foreign exchange it has.

And to close this edition, an update to a story from a previous show. Recall that the Ethiopian Football Federation appointed Gebre-Medhin Haile as the manager of the National Football Team. Well, his team was put to the test this past week in the twenty twenty-six World Cup Qualifiers. However, they did not perfom well. Ethiopia went up against Sierra Leone on Wednesday, the 15th. The match was held in Morocco because Ethiopia doesn’t have a stadium that meets FIFA’s standards. There was a lot of fog, but the game went on anyway. The game ended goalless. However, After the match, the Ethiopian Football Federation lodged a complaint against FIFA, saying that the match shouldn’t have continued in such foggy weather. On Tuesday the 21st and still in Morocco, Ethiopia faced Burkina Faso for the second match in the group stage and lost three-nil. Ethiopia is playing catch-up even at this early stage as the other teams in Group A have at least three points more than the country’s national team. Egypt leads the group with six points, Burkina Faso and Guinea Bissau both share second place with four points.

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Ciao!