Argaw Ashine
21 July 2009
Addis Ababa — Ethiopian authorities have suspended the operations of 42 non-governmental organisations allegedly involved in activities that are "out of their mandate" in the Southern region of the country.
Ethiopia's Southern regional state justice office chief Mr Yilma Meresa told this writer that those NGOs were out to interrupt the peace and development of the region.
Mr Yilma refused to disclose the name of the suspended organisations. However, he hinted that most of them were local NGOs.
The Nation has learnt that two local gender rights organisations are among the suspended NGOs.
The Ethiopian government moved to revoke the licence of the NGOs following accusation of their alleged involvement in reporting human right abuses in the rural areas.
Ethiopian government publicly accused some NGOs of supplying "inaccurate" information to the United States' State Department, which was published in March 2009.
Food aid
Meanwhile, United Nations humanitarian office in Ethiopia has warned that the number of people who need food aid in Ethiopia will increase to 6.2 million unless more food aid can be secured.
The recent number of people requiring food aid has been 4.9 million and now the country needs additional 390,000 metric tonnes of emergency food aid for the coming three months.
Ethiopia leads the region by registering an average 10 per cent annual economic growth, has been avowed to end hunger but has achieved less success.
Landlocked Ethiopia is also facing port congestion at port Djibouti which delays the flow of food aid to the country.
Recently, World Food Program (WFP) urged Ethiopian authorities to prioritise the transport of food aid rather than agricultural fertilizer, which is equally important for the second most populous African nation at 85.2 million (UN, 2008).
According to WFP, Ethiopia government agreed to prioritise transporting food aid and allocate more berths for ships to offload available food aid at port Djibouti.
AllAfrica editors' note: This report has been amended since first posted to remove the listing of Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) as one of the groups whose operations were suspended. MSF says it is not currently working in the southern regions of Ethiopia and its inclusion in the article was a mistake.
Read comments. Write your own.
Copyright © 2009 The Nation. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections — or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here.
AllAfrica aggregates and indexes content from over 125 African news organizations, plus more than 200 other sources, who are responsible for their own reporting and views. Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica.
This fascit and dragonian anti terorist law rubber stamped by the nominal parliment is sending a clear message to the world that there will be no 2010 election because all activities in relation to the excercise of democracy is deemed as an offence which atracts a jail term in excess of 15 years. The western governments that bank role this minority regime bears the responsibilty of the blood path that will follow in Ethiopia and I am not sure if Ethiopia will survive after the predetermined election.
I am surprised why the US and other western powers are sitting back while the minority regime is trampling on every basic human right for so long. Let us hope that Empirial Ethiopia ceases like the soviet union in peace as the alternative is indeed very scary.
Active Discussions: Fears Over New Anti-Terror Law in Ethiopia