UN refugee agency visits detained Eritrean migrants

Daily news ( Egypt)

25/06/08

CAIRO: A UN refugee agency spokeswoman says Egyptian authorities allowed the organization to visit for the first time two detention centers housing 160 detained African migrants.

Abeer Etefa, of UNHCR in Cairo, says authorities have given unhindered access to 142 Eritreans and 19 Ethiopians held in the two centers in the southern city of Aswan. The city is located 685 km south of Cairo.

Etefa says a UNHCR team is already “on the ground” in Aswan and that the migrants, including women and children, seem to be in “decent condition.”

Egypt says it still has 650 Eritreans in custody after more than a thousand were detained for illegal entry. Human rights groups have condemned the deportation of others. –AP

Queen Strips Mugabe of Knighthood

25/06/08

Queen Elizabeth II has stripped Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwe’s strongman president for nearly 30 years, of his honorary knighthood as a “mark of revulsion” at the human rights abuses and “abject disregard” for democracy over which he has presided, the British Foreign Office announced Wednesday.

The rebuke showed the extent of international frustration over Mr. Mugabe’s insistence to go ahead with a presidential runoff on Friday, even though his sole opponent, Morgan Tsvangirai, pulled out of race on Sunday because of the persistent violence and intimidation against him, his party and their supporters.

Mr. Mugabe’s government has had a long history of human rights abuses, but he was granted an honorary knighthood during an official visit to England in 1994 when, the foreign office contends, “the conditions in Zimbabwe were very different.”

But with the widespread attacks against the opposition, the foreign office said the honor could no longer be justified. Stripping a dignitary of an honorary knighthood is exceedingly rare. A foreign office spokesman could think of only one other time it had been done — in 1989 to the Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceaucescu.

Mr. Tsvangirai, the beleaguered opposition leader, called on the United Nations on Wednesday to send a peacekeeping force to bring calm to the country and help pave the way for new elections in which he could participate as a “legitimate candidate.”

“Zimbabwe will break if the world does not come to our aid,” he said in an op-ed in The Guardian newspaper in London. After weeks of mounting political violence against the opposition and its supporters, Mr. Tsvangirai withdrew from Friday’s runoff and took refuge Sunday in the Dutch Embassy in Harare.

He emerged from the embassy briefly on Wednesday to hold a news conference at his home in which he challenged President Robert Mugabe to cancel the runoff and open negotiations.

But, he said, he was not prepared to deal with a government validated by an election in which Mr. Mugabe is by default the only candidate. Mr. Mugabe has insisted Friday’s voting will go ahead.

“We have said we are prepared to negotiate on this side of the 27th, not the other side of the 27th,” Mr. Tsvangirai said, according to Reuters.

He listed four demands: an end to political violence; the resumption of humanitarian aid; the swearing in of legislators elected in the first round of voting on March 29; and the release of political prisoners.

“We have always maintained that the Zimbabwean problem is an African problem that requires an African solution,” he said, referring to continent-wide and regional African bodies including the Southern African Development Community.

“To this end, I am asking the African Union and S.A.D.C. to lead an expanded initiative, supported by the United Nations, to manage the transitional process.

“The transitional period would allow the country to heal,” he said. “Genuine and honest dialogue amongst Zimbabweans is the only way forward.” He said he wanted the African Union to endorse his proposals at a forthcoming summit meeting in Egypt.

Mr. Tsvangirai’s demands coincided with a scramble of regional and international diplomacy with many African and Western institutions saying the vote on Friday will be neither free nor fair. A critical group of southern African countries opened a meeting Wednesday in Swaziland to seek a way out of the crisis.

The meeting grouped leaders or ministers from Swaziland, Angola and Tanzania — the so-called troika charged with responsibility for the region’s political, defense and security issues. The group said it had also invited the leaders of Zambia and South Africa to attend, but President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa, the regional mediator on the crisis in Zimbabwe, said through a spokesman that he would not attend.

The spokesman, Mukoni Ratshitanga, said in a telephone interview that South Africa was not a member of the troika and had not been invited.

Amid the international outcry over his government’s handling of the crisis, Mr. Mugabe, 84, was reported Tuesday as hinting that he might be open to talks with the opposition, but only after Friday’s vote confirmed his power.

He remained defiant about going ahead with the runoff.

“They can shout as loud as they like from Washington or from London or from any other quarter,” Mr. Mugabe said in televised broadcasts. “Our people, our people, only our people will decide and nobody else.”

Taken together, his remarks were the most explicit affirmation that he intended to go through with an election widely condemned as illegitimate.

But the hint of readiness to talk was also the first sign that Mr. Mugabe might negotiate — as Mr. Mbeki has been urging him to do — once he has what he can depict as a position of strength.

The state-run Herald newspaper quoted Mr. Mugabe on Wednesday as saying: “We are open, open to discussion but we have our own principles.”

The American ambassador in Harare, James McGee, has concluded that Mr. Mugabe and his Zanu-PF party area determined to hold the runoff “at all costs,” according to the State Department.

“We’ve received reports that Zanu-PF will force people to vote on Friday and also take action against those who refuse to vote,” Mr. McGee said in a conference call described by the State Department. “So, they’re saying ‘We want an election at all costs. We want to validate Mr. Mugabe’s victory here.’” “There’s really nothing that we can do here in the international community to stop these elections,” Mr. McGee said.

The BBC quoted Jendayi Frazer, the State Department’s assistant secretary of state for African affairs, as saying Washington would not recognize the outcome of the vote if it went forward.

“People were being beaten and losing their lives just to exercise their right to vote for their leadership so we cannot, under these conditions, recognize the outcome if, in fact, this runoff goes forward,” she was quoted as saying.

South Africa, the region’s most influential player, has rejected outside intervention in the crisis.

In a statement on Tuesday, South Africa’s ruling African National Congress insisted that “any attempts by outside players to impose regime change will merely deepen the crisis.”

While the A.N.C. statement came out with an unusually strong condemnation of the Zimbabwean government, saying it was “riding roughshod over the hard-won democratic rights” of its people, the party also insisted that outsiders had no role to play in ending its current anguish.

“It has always been and continues to be the view of our movement that the challenges facing Zimbabwe can only be solved by the Zimbabweans themselves,” the statement said. “Nothing that has happened in the recent months has persuaded us to revise that view.”

Despite that assessment, Prime Minister Gordon Brown of Britain told Parliament on Wednesday, “We are preparing intensified sanctions, financial and travel sanctions, against named members of the Mugabe regime.” That included a ban on the Zimbabwean cricket team to prevent it from touring England, news agencies reported.

The A.N.C. warned against international intervention a day after the United Nations Security Council took its first action on the electoral crisis in Zimbabwe, issuing a unanimous statement condemning the widespread campaign of violence in the country and calling on the government to free political prisoners and allow the opposition to hold rallies.

Writing in The Guardian, however, Mr. Tsvangirai, again took issue with Mr. Mbeki’s mediation, saying “it sought to massage a defeated dictator rather than show him the door and prod him towards it.”

“We ask for the U.N. to go further than its recent resolution, condemning the violence in Zimbabwe, to encompass an active isolation of the dictator Mugabe,” Mr. Tsvangirai said.

“For this we need a force to protect the people. We do not want armed conflict, but the people of Zimbabwe need the words of indignation from global leaders to be backed by the moral rectitude of military force. Such a force would be in the role of peacekeepers, not troublemakers. They would separate the people from their oppressors and cast the protective shield around the democratic process for which Zimbabwe yearns,” he said.

“The next stage should be a new presidential election. This does indeed burden Zimbabwe and create an atmosphere of limbo. Yet there is hardly a scenario that does not carry an element of pain. The reality is that a new election, devoid of violence and intimidation, is the only way to put Zimbabwe right,” Mr. Tsvangirai said.

It was not immediately clear how other African nations would respond to Mr. Tsvangirai’s call.

The A.N.C. statement, which was the first official response from South Africa since Mr. Tsvangirai’s withdrawal, was not signed by any individual in the A.N.C. It seemed to represent a marked departure from Mr. Mbeki’s refusal to castigate Mr. Mugabe, and seemed to reflect the increasing frustration with the Zimbabwean president.

At the same time, in what seemed a clear rebuke to the efforts of Western nations to take an aggressive stance against the Zimbabwean government, the A.N.C. included a lengthy criticism of the “arbitrary, capricious power” exerted by Africa’s colonial masters and cited the subsequent struggle by African nations to gain freedoms and rights.

“No colonial power in Africa, least of all Britain in its colony of ‘Rhodesia’ ever demonstrated any respect for these principles,” the A.N.C. said, referring to Zimbabwe before its independence.

Zimbabwe, once one of Africa’s most prosperous countries, has been reeling from a widening campaign of violence and intimidation since Mr. Mugabe, Zimbabwe’s president for nearly 30 years, came in second in the initial round of voting on March 29.

In a show of support for the opposition, the powerful Congress of South African Trade Unions declared on Tuesday that it was “appalled at the levels of violence and intimidation being inflicted on the people of Zimbabwe by the illegitimate Mugabe regime.”

“The June 27 presidential election is not an election, but a declaration of war against the people of Zimbabwe by the ruling party,” the union group said.

Urging a boycott of Zimbabwe, it said: “We call on all our unions and those everywhere else in the world to make sure that they never ever serve Mugabe anywhere, including at airports, restaurants, shops, etc.

“Further, we call on all workers and citizens of the world never to allow Mugabe to set foot in their countries.”

AU Reps. Committee meeting begins in camera

25/06/08

Sharm El Sheik, Egypt -

The Permanent Representative Committee (PRC) of the African Union (AU) member countries began meeting behind closed doors Tuesda y in Sharm El Sheik, Egypt, to pave the way for the 11th summit on the theme: “Water and sanitation”.

Ambassadors accredited to the AU will examine several issues including administr ative and financial issues mainly the Commission funds and member states’ contributions.

Already by 23 January, the overall amount of the outstanding contributions stood at US$ 40.955 million while 28 states had not paid their contributions for a year or more.

The PRC will look into the statutory contributions of the AU member states durin g the last five months before proposing sanctions against members who had accumulated outstanding contributions.

Seven states are under sanctions – Cape Verde, the CAR, the DR Congo, Eritrea, G uinea Bissau, Sao Tome and Principe, Seychelles.

The agenda of the ambassadors’ meeting also includes the review pf the interim r eport on administrative issues submited to the Commission by the 11th extraordinary session of the Executive Council 1-6 May in Arusha, Tanzania.

The Permanent Representative Committee is also expected to discuss the decisions made during conferences and other meetings organised since the last summit in Addis Ababa (Ethiopia) mainly on political (refugee problems), economic and social

issues (follow-up on the setting up of the financial institutions, AU-EU dialogu e follow-up, interim report on the AU’s key partnerships among other issues).

The PRC decisions remain recommendations until their approval by the Executive C ouncil. Its mission is to facilitate communication between the Commission and me m ber states, supervise the Commission activities, facilitate action and support the Executive Council in carrying out its duties.

Eritrea: Speech By Permanent Mission to the United Nations

(Asmara) Shabait.com

DOCUMENT
25 June 2008

The Government of Djibouti has been engaged in leveling incessant and baseless accusations against the Government of Eritrea for the past two months. These accusations have no bearing whatsoever with the facts and realities on the ground.

n the event, Eritrea did not respond to the hostile campaign. Instead it chose the path of restraint and patience. This was for profound reasons. Because Eritrea is keenly aware that the provocative campaign originates from, and is designed and packaged, elsewhere. Indeed, Djibouti and its people cannot have, by any stretch of imagination, any interest in this affair. The issue is not, in reality, an agenda of, or a matter that regards Djibouti.

The fact is there is no good-faith territorial or other dispute between Eritrea and Djibouti. Djibouti’s unwarranted hostile campaign is underpinned by, and synchronized with, other ulterior motives and regional developments.

Allow me, Excellencies, to elaborate more on the dimensions and ramifications of this manufactured crisis.

On 22 April this year, few weeks before the onset of this unwarranted campaign, the Ethiopian regime set up a new military camp on mount Musa-Ali. Ethiopia built a network of winding roads up the mount, and, deployed offensive, long-range, artillery and heavy equipment with the apparent knowledge and acquiescence of its major backers.

Musa-Ali is perked on a border junction of the three countries. The Eritrea-Ethiopia Boundary Commission (EEBC) has, in the course of its delimitation and demarcation Awards of the Eritrea-Ethiopia boundary, determined the respective sovereignties of both countries at this trilateral junction. Ethiopia’s actions, six years after the EEBC Award, are in flagrant violation of these determinations.

In spite of these illegal acts of destabilization, Eritrea chose to keep silent so as to pursue its established legal approach with higher focus.

But Eritrea’s restraint in the face of this provocation only aroused further frustration on the forces who wanted to stir trouble by trampling the rule of law. A hostile campaign was set in motion and on June 10 this month, the Government of Djibouti was pushed to launch a provocative and meaningless military attack on our units in the border. Furthermore, Djibouti cried foul first to accuse Eritrea for the very acts that it had perpetrated as the local proverb goes: “a slingshot hits its target and emits a shrill cry first”. Djibouti thus did not only launch an unprovoked attack but leveled a trumped up and well-orchestrated accusation against Eritrea.

What was more appalling was the unbalanced and unwarranted Presidential Statement that the UN Security Council adopted on 12 June this month with the prodding and sponsorship of the United States.

In spite of all these adversities, Eritrea did not relax but instead bolstered its restraint.

As I pointed out earlier, the underlying objective of the military provocation, using Djibouti as the Trojan Horse, is to divert Eritrea from the main agenda – its legal pursuit to ensure Ethiopia’s eviction from its sovereign territories in accordance with the final and binding determinations of the EEBC – and to embroil Eritrea in another front. The whole idea is to entangle us in mutual recriminations with Djibouti. This would lead to endless, fashionable, “mediation missions” and the aggravation of putative regional crises. This would in turn dilute and eclipse Eritrea’s legal efforts to ensure international action towards the eviction of Ethiopian occupation from sovereign Eritrean territories.

That the architects of this “crisis” are officials in the US State Department and their allies in Addis Abeba is very clear indeed. As part and parcel of her routine vilification campaigns against Eritrea, the US Assistant Secretary of State for Africa claimed, on May 12 last month, that “Eritrea had made an incursion into Djibouti”.

The timing of Djibouti’s attack, which coincided with the US Presidency of the UN Security Council, also speaks volumes in itself. The Press Statement that the US Administration issued swiftly at 2:00 a.m. on Wednesday June 11 (just few hours after the attack) condemning Eritrea of “military aggression” is more than curious and betrays the game plan. The Peace and Security Council of the African Union was also “seized on the Eritrea-Djibouti problem” three times in May under the Chairmanship of the Ethiopian regime. The same charade occurred with IGAD in Addis Abeba this month. (These institutions have maintained a deafening silence on Ethiopia’s violations of the AU Charter and its occupation of sovereign Eritrean territories for the last six years).

In this light, the new campaign this week in the Security Council is highly regrettable. Why has Djibouti been prompted to submit an accusation against Eritrea at this level? Why has the Security Council been summoned to discuss a dubious and irresponsible accusation against another Member State with such hastiness? When the Security Council has kept silent or shown little, if any, concern to Ethiopia’s flagrant violation of international law and its occupation of sovereign Eritrean territories, how has it been persuaded now to discuss a “territorial dispute” that does not exist and where no territory has been occupied? Why is an unwarranted skirmish that Djibouti provoked in the first place being misconstrued “as an act of aggression” (US terminology) that deserves prompt consideration and action by the UN Security Council? Why is the issue being blown out of all proportions? We could ask endless questions.

The Government of Eritrea wishes to underline again that it will not be plunged – through provocations, enticements and other mendacious accusations – into a crisis to become a scapegoat for misguided policies that have failed miserably in our region.

Indeed, if the Security Council is genuinely concerned in maintaining regional peace and security, it must look elsewhere. It cannot, and must not, otherwise target the victim. For the former to happen, Eritrea believes and humbly requests the Security Council to examine seriously, and to take appropriate measures against, the misguided acts of the US Government that are contributing to the creation, complication and escalation of conflicts in our region.

I thank you

Kenya to Raise Power Output to Meet Growing Demand

published by Daily Nation website

25/06/08

Text of report by Jeff Otieno entitled “Power output to be raised” published by Kenyan privately-owned newspaper Daily Nation website on 25 June; subheading as published

An additional 2,000 megawatts will be added to the national grid in the next 10 years to meet the growing demand for energy, President Kibaki said on Tuesday.

About 85 per cent of the new capacity will be generated from renewable energy sources, namely geothermal, which is friendly to the environment.

The project is expected to cost the government 4bn shillings, given that the production of one megawatt of geothermal power costs about 2m shillings.

President Kibaki announced this after opening the 16th Congress of the Union of Producers, Transporters and Distributors of Electric Power in Africa at Safari Park on Tuesday.

Two companies

He said two companies, one for geothermal development and another for power transmission, were in the pipeline to complete critical energy reforms.

The head of state blamed the poor performance of the energy sector to the lack of good governance in many African countries. He said governments in the continent must promote accountability, efficiency, transparency and integrity in the energy sector to boost production.

“Increased production can be achieved if the utilities in Africa develop and utilize human resource expertise effectively and entrench good governance practices in all their operations,” said President Kibaki.

The union is the umbrella body for energy utilities in Africa, which aims at increasing energy production in the continent through increased investments and creation of regional power pools.

The two-day conference, which brings together some of Africa’s biggest power utilities, will discuss, among other issues, good governance in the energy sector and regional interconnectivity.

KenGen managing director Eddy Njoroge said that even though lack of funds was a problem in the generation of energy, poor leadership was the single major hindrance.

Mr Njoroge, who is also the incoming producers’ union president, criticized chief executive officers of energy utilities for failing to plan for the future.

The KenGen CEO said African governments had continued to appoint people at the helm of the utilities on non-meritocratic considerations.

Energy minister Kiraitu Murungi said the economic growth recorded in the last five years had necessitated a corresponding increase in the generation and supply of power.

Mr Murungi noted that the country needed increased power generation as supply was almost at par with demand.

According to the Investment Climate Assessment Report released by the World Bank last Monday, electricity supply in Kenya had been a problem in the last four years.

Make losses

The report says close to 80 per cent of companies in Kenya made losses due to power interruptions compared to China (40 per cent) and South Africa (13 per cent). According to the latest economic survey, production grew by 7.3 per cent in 2007.

Mr Murungi said the government had committed itself to the establishment of the Eastern Africa Power Pool, which will connect Rwanda, Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo, Uganda and Kenya. Others are Tanzania, Sudan, Ethiopia, Somalia, Djibouti, Eritrea and Egypt.

He said a signed intergovernmental memorandum of understanding by the countries’ Energy ministers was in force.

The ministers also announced that the on-going Kenya-Ethiopia interconnection was aimed at delivering about 400MW by 2012.

Originally published by Daily Nation website, Nairobi, in English 25 Jun 08.

Rememer our friendship – Djibouti President in Asmara – Video

more about “Djibouti President in Asmara – Video “, posted with vodpod

Remember our friendship

ERITREA WOULD WORK TO ENHANCE

ERITREAN-DJIBOUTIAN FRIENDLY TIES:

PRESIDENT ISAIAS

AllAfrica
05-22-2006
Eritrea Would Work to Enhance Eritrean-Djiboutian Friendly Ties: President Isaias

Asmara, May 20, 2006 (Shabait.com/All Africa Global Media via COMTEX) — President Isaias Afwerki said that Eritrea would work to further enhance the existing friendly relations and cooperation between Eritrea and Djibouti.

The President made the remarks today while receiving Brig. General Zekeria Sheik Ibrahim, Head of the Military Staff of Djibouti, who is here heading a government delegation. He underlined the significance of holding continued meetings between the two countries at different levels.

DJIBOUTIAN LEADER INVITES PRESIDENT

ISAIAS TO ATTEND COMESA SUMMIT

AllAfrica
07-28-2006
Djiboutian Leader Invites President Isaias to Attend Comesa Summit

Asmara, Jul 28, 2006 (Shabait.com/All Africa Global Media via COMTEX) — President Ismail Omar Guelle of Djibouti sent a message to President Isaias Afwerki inviting him to attend the 11th Summit of the Common Market For Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA).

Athletes Back Home From Djibouti

Posted: 2006/04/22
From: Shabait

The National Athletics Team that took part in the 5th East African Athletics competition from 17 to 19 April returned home last night. The 22-member team won 2 gold, 6 silver, 7 bronze medals, thereby putting Eritrea in the second rank. Athletes Merhawi Asmelash and Bereket Tesfatsion stood first and second at the 1,500 meters contest held yesterday at the closing of the competition. In the welcoming ceremony at Asmara Stadium today, Maj. General Romodan Osman Awleyay, Commissioner of Sports, and Mr. Beyene Russom, president of the National Athletics Federation welcomed the athletes and stated that the victory is a major achievement for the people and the nation as whole. Reports said that an Eritrean national residing in Djibouti, Mr. Tekeste Ogabamichael, donated 7,800 Nakfa to the athletes. Eritrea, Ethiopia, Uganda, Djibouti, Zanzibar, Somalia, Tanzania and Sudan took part in the 5th East African Athletics Competition while Sudan, Eritrea and Djibouti stood first, second and third respectively.