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Ethiopia: Land for Sale l People & Power | 14 Apr 2016 Ambakisye-Okang Dukuzumurenyi 28 Views • 5 years ago

Just a few decades ago, Ethiopia was a country defined by its famines, particularly between 1983-1985 when in excess of half a million people starved to death as a consequence of drought, crop failure and a brutal civil war.

Against this backdrop, in recent years, Ethiopia has been experiencing stellar economic growth. The headline statistics are certainly remarkable: the country is creating millionaires faster than any other in Africa; output from farming, Ethiopia’s dominant industry, has tripled in a decade; the capital Addis Ababa is experiencing a massive construction boom; and the last six years have seen the nation’s GDP grow by a staggering 108 percent.

But it is not all positive news.

Around 90 percent of the population of 87 million still suffers from numerous deprivations, ranging from insufficient access to education to inadequate health care; average incomes are still well below $1500 a year; and more than 30 million people still face chronic food shortages.

Many critics say that the growth seen in agriculture, which accounts for almost half of Ethiopia’s economic activity and a great deal of its recent success, is actually being driven by an out of control ‘land grab', as multinational companies and private speculators vie to lease millions of acres of the country’s most fertile territory from the government at bargain basement prices.

At the ministry of agriculture in Addis Ababa, this land-lease programme is often described as a "win-win" because it brings in new technologies and employment and, supposedly, makes it easier to improve health care, education and other services in rural areas.

"Ethiopia needs to develop to fight poverty, increase food supplies and improve livelihoods and is doing so in a sustainable way," said one official.

But according to a host of NGO’s and policy advocates, including Oxfam, Human Rights Watch and the Oakland Institute, the true consequences of the land grabs are almost all negative. They say that in order to make such huge areas available for foreign investors to grow foodstuffs and bio-fuels for export - and in direct contravention of Ethiopia’s obligations under international law - the authorities are displacing hundreds of thousands of indigenous peoples, abusing their human rights, destroying their traditions, trashing the environment, and making them more dependent on food aid than ever before.

The most controversial element of the government’s programme is known as 'villagisation' - the displacement of people from land they have occupied for generations and their subsequent resettlement in artificial communities.

In Gambella, where two ethnic groups, the Anuaks and the Nuers, predominate, it has meant tens of thousands of people have been forced to abandon a traditional way of life. One such is Moot, an Anuak farmer who now lives in a government village far from his home.

Despite growing internal opposition and international criticism, the Ethiopian government shows no sign of scaling the programme back. According to the Oakland Institute, since 2008, an area the size of France has already been handed over to foreign corporations. Over the next few years an area twice that size is thought to be earmarked for leasing to investors.

So what does all this mean for the people on the ground? In Ethiopia – Land for Sale, filmmakers Veronique Mauduy and Romain Pelleray try and find out.

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'Piracy' in Somalia & Nigeria | People & Power | 17 Nov 2016 Ambakisye-Okang Dukuzumurenyi 21 Views • 5 years ago

The event followed a now familiar pattern: a small convoy of dusty 4x4 vehicles drove on to the edge of the airstrip at Galkayo in Puntland, north-central Somalia; armed security guards took up watchful positions nearby and a number of bemused-looking men stepped gingerly from the cars and lined up to have their photographs taken by the media.

On this occasion there were 11 of them; all had been hostages until that morning. They were sailors from a Malaysian cargo vessel that had been hijacked by Somali pirates a few years ago and held until a ransom was paid for their release.

One of them gave a brief account of what had happened. "On November 26, 2010 our ship was hijacked in the Indian Ocean. Their demand was 20 million. After that, they threatened the owner. You now increase money or we will shoot the crew. The owner didn't increase the money and then one Indian is shot with just three bullets. Then they hit us and tortured us. Tell your family to bring us money, otherwise we will kill you!"

The crew had been held for three and a half years but they were the fortunate ones. Five of their crew mates had died in that time. Now the survivors were going home and a UN plane with two envoys on board was flying in to see them to safety.

Such scenes have become relatively commonplace in Galkayo in recent times. Eighty percent of global trade is carried by sea and Somalia sits on a key maritime route linking Europe and Asia. More than 18,000 ships pass its shores every year. Over the past decade, Somali pirates, often former fishermen whose traditional livelihoods have been destroyed by foreign trawlers and toxic waste dumping, have attacked more than 300 vessels and kidnapped 700 people.

Faced with such a threat, the international community responded aggressively. In 2008, European states, the US and others began sending naval forces to these seas. They are still there today - warships, planes and helicopters patrolling thousands of square miles and doing a fair job of keeping the hijackers at bay. The UN and others have also played an increasing role in facilitating negotiations for the release of hostages - such as those set free at places such as Galkayo - for whose liberty large ransoms have been paid.

But if the problem is now slowly coming under control in Somalia, the same cannot be said for other parts of the world where piracy is on the increase. Lawlessness, desperation, poverty, greed and even political radicalism have brought the phenomenon to the waters of South America, Asia and, perhaps most aggressively, to West Africa.

In an effort to understand the reasons why, Bertrand Monnet, a French academic and filmmaker, has been travelling to piracy hot spots around the coast of Africa. In an extraordinary and very tense series of encounters, he came to face to face with heavily armed pirate gangs operating in and around the Niger Delta, where Nigeria's huge offshore oil industry, which employs thousands of expatriates, offers rich ransom pickings. It gradually became clear that piracy in West Africa has many of the same root causes as piracy in Somalia and elsewhere, not least of which is that those who don't share in the benefits and profits of global trade have ever fewer reasons these days to respect the security of those who do.

Source: Al Jazeera

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Cote d'Ivoire Partial Justice - People & Power | 26 Jan 2017 Ambakisye-Okang Dukuzumurenyi 18 Views • 5 years ago

In 2011 Cote d'Ivoire - or Ivory Coast as it is known in the english speaking world - was torn apart by inter-community violence that broke out between supporters of newly elected President Ouattara and his predecessor Laurent Gbagbo. It was the latest round in a bitter ethnic struggle that had wrought havoc in this former French colony for a decade. Three thousand people were killed; more than a million, from both side, were displaced.

The fighting was only brought to an end with the help of French and UN troops who intervened on Ouattara's side. Today the government says its aim is to lay these tensions to rest and return to the peace and stability that once made Cote D'Ivoire one of the most prosperous nations in West Africa.

But although violence has indeed diminished abd the country is enjoying a degree of economic success, dangerous ethnic and political rivalries still simmer. Last years saw protests over constitutional reforms aimed at preventing the exclusion of presidential candidates based on their ethnicity, and in January a pay dispute involving the army broke out into a short lived mutiny.

The country's former president Laurent Gbagbo, who still commands support in parts of the country, is currently on trial at the International Criminal Court for crimes allegedly committed before and during the election conflict six years ago. But while Gbagbo faces justice at the Hague and some of his followers have been already been jailed back home, it seems that no Ouattara followers have yet been prosecuted.

People & Power sent filmmaker Victoria Baux to the west of the country where pro-Gbagbo communities were savagely targeted by pro-Ouattara forces during the violence of 2011.

We wanted to find out why the government's promises to provide impartial justice to the victims hadn't yet been kept. We also wanted to investigate disturbing claims about ethnic attacks that took place well after President Ouattara came to power - events that, it's been alleged, were witnessed by UN peacekeeping troops who failed to intervene.

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