Mereja Forum

[Zmeselo]

A few months ago, there was an announcement in Mekele about electing a: Miss Virgin. It shows, that the tplf was running a sex industry. Tegaru women were raped & abused for years & years, but Amnesty was't their voice.

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Amnesty International
Amnesty International has toxic working culture, report finds

Bullying, public humiliation and discrimination threaten rights group’s credibility


Amnesty International drops a banner from Vauxhall Bridge opposite the US embassy in London in a protest against Donald Trump’s visit to the United Kingdom last July

Karen McVeigh @karenmcveigh1

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/ ... b-gdnworld

6 Feb 2019

Amnesty International has a “toxic” working environment, with widespread bullying, public humiliation, discrimination and other abuses of power, a report has found.

A review into workplace culture, https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/or ... 3/2019/en/ commissioned after two staff members killed themselves last year, found a dangerous “us versus them” dynamic, and a severe lack of trust in senior management, which threatened Amnesty’s credibility as a human rights champion.

It added:

As organisational rifts and evidence of nepotism and hypocrisy become public knowledge they will be used by government and other opponents of Amnesty’s work to undercut or dismiss Amnesty’s advocacy around the world, fundamentally jeopardising the organisation’s mission.

The report, undertaken by the KonTerra Group and led by psychologists, to look into lessons learned following the suicides in 2018, found bullying and public humiliation were routinely used by management.

There were multiple reports of managers belittling staff in meetings, deliberately excluding certain staff from reporting, or making demeaning, menacing comments like: ‘You’re [deleted]!’ or: ‘You should quit! If you stay in this position, your life will be a misery,’

it said.

The consultants, who focused on Amnesty’s international secretariat, based in London, found it to be largely operating in a “state of emergency” following a restructuring process to decentralise and move staff closer to the ground in places of civil unrest and conflict.

Many staff at Amnesty described their employment as a vocation or life cause and said there had a

significant risk of experiencing secondary stress or vicarious trauma

due to the nature of the work.

But, the report found, the “lion’s share” of wellbeing issues were not isolated to exposure to trauma or suffering. Instead, the adversarial culture, failures in management and pressures of workload were among the most significant contributors to wellbeing issues.

The review was based on a survey of 475 staff, 70% of the workforce of Amnesty’s international secretariat, and on scores of interviews. Some experienced “significant distress” during the process, it said.

Amnesty International had a reputation for doing great work but being a hard place to work. Across many interviews the word ‘toxic’ was used to describe the Amnesty work culture as far back as the 1990s. So were the phrases ‘adversarial’, ‘lack of trust’ and ‘bullying’.

Staff reported multiple accounts of discrimination on the basis of race and gender and which women, staff of colour and LGBTQI employees were targeted or treated unfairly.

Given Amnesty’s status and mission – to protect and promote human rights – the number of accounts the assessment team received of ‘bullying’,‘racism’, and ‘sexism’ is disconcerting,

it said.

The reviewers provided Amnesty’s secretary general with a private report on allegations of abuse of power, discrimination and unfair treatment, which merit further investigation.

They found multiple instances of alleged favouritism or nepotism in hiring and cases where

it appears that positions or individuals may have been made redundant without due process.

One of the issues facing the organisation was a “martyrdom culture”, in which staff would sacrifice their own wellbeing by taking on huge workloads – a clear “recipe for overload and burnout”. The restructuring had “taken a considerable toll” on staff wellbeing, it said.

Amnesty cannot effectively strive to make the world a better place while perpetuating an organisational culture deeply marked by secrecy, mistrust, nepotism and other forms of power abuse.

Kumi Naidoo, Amnesty’s secretary-general, said the review was a difficult and profoundly troubling read. In a statement (pdf), https://www.amnesty.org/download/Docume ... NGLISH.PDF he said he would bring forward a reform plan by the end of March.

Amnesty’s work culture problems were first revealed in May last year, when the Times reported that Gaëtan Mootoo had killed himself after complaining of stress and overwork. Six weeks later, Rosalind McGregor, 28, an intern in Amnesty’s Geneva’s office, killed herself at her family home in Surrey.

One staff member told the review that the organisation’s response to Mootoo’s death “upset many of us a lot”.

The way they announced it, the way they tried to cover up.

His death was followed by several reviews. One, conducted by James Laddie QC, found that “a serious failure of management” had contributed to Mootoo’s death. https://www.theguardian.com/global-deve ... ed-himself

A separate inquiry into McGregor’s death concluded that she had been distressed for “personal reasons” and that Amnesty bore no responsibility for her death.

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AU ASKED TO INTERVENE
Ethiopia faults US for 'interference' over Tigray conflict

US condemned the reported atrocities in the region, calling upon AU to intervene.

In Summary

________________________________________________________

• Government of Ethiopia said that it is taking responsibility for the safety, security, and well-being of its citizens.

• Ethiopia said that honouring international obligations and responsibilities should not be deemed by any entity as an invitation to dictate a sovereign nation’s internal affairs.

________________________________________________________

By KEVIN CHERUIYOT Online Journalist

https://www.the-star.co.ke/news/africa/ ... -conflict/

01 March 2021


Ethiopia's Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed speaks at a news conference at his office in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia August 1, 2019 (Image: REUTERS)

The Ethiopian Government has criticised the US for attempting to make pronouncements on its internal affairs regarding the situation in the Tigray region.

In a statement, the government said it has made its position clear concerning human rights abuses and crimes committed in the Tigray region.

The US had condemned the reported atrocities in the region and called upon the AU to intervene before the situation gets worsen.

We are deeply concerned by the worsening humanitarian crisis,

Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said.

But the government of Ethiopia said that it is taking responsibility for the safety, security, and well-being of its citizens.

However, the attempt by the US to make pronouncements on Ethiopia’s internal affairs and specifically the reference to the Amhara regional forces redeployment is regrettable,

the statement says.

It continued that,

It should be clear that such matters are the sole responsibility of the Ethiopian government, which as a sovereign nation, is responsible to deploy the necessary security structures and means available in ensuring the rule of law within all corners of its borders.

According to the Ethiopian government spokesperson, the Federal Government is mandated by the constitution to ensure peace and security against any threats to the Constitutional order of the country.

It is in the spirit of this responsibility and holding a nation together from treasonous and divisive forces that the Federal government has been undertaking the rule of law operations in Tigray.

Further, the government said that it has an unwavering commitment to honour its international responsibilities despite the destabilizing nature of the challenges that ensued due to the high treason of a criminal clique.

Nevertheless, honouring international obligations and responsibilities should not be deemed by any entity as an invitation to dictate a sovereign nation’s internal affairs,

it said.




____________________________
____________________________

People like Anthony Blinken are interventionist and militarist and Biden’s administration, especially his foreign policy team, are made of hardliners or interventionists.

Biden's Secretary of State Antony blinken, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, Secretary of Defence Lloyd Austin and the Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines are people who are close to the Military Industrial Complex and had positions in the Obama administration. That adm., which loved the TPLF so much.

Biden was Vice President, Blinken Assistant Secretary of State and jake Sullivan, advisor to Biden was advisor to Hillary Clinton as well.

Biden, Blinken and Obama did their military adventurism in Lybia, Syria, Yemen, Somalia etc. Blinken and Biden supported and enabled the Iraq war, because the democrats at that time controlled the Senate and Bush needed their votes for the war. Biden supported, the Iraqi weapons of mass destruction lie.

Biden and Blinken, can use any allegations to go against their so called enemies. They did this in the past in Iraq and in Lybia when Gaddafi was accused by the west and the rebels for starting the civil war, commitibg mass rapes and massacres.

At the end, it came out that the rebels started to go against Gaddafi with violence and the help of US invasion.

Biden and Blinken are interventionist and they are only doing what they have been doing, all their careers. There need to be a solution, but supporting the tplf is not one.

And of course, behind the scenes, there's Susan Rice.

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Massive interference from Biden admin - The US will end up without allies in East Africa (the last being the TPLF puppets). Even those who like to be puppets, won't accept this kind of arrogance. On Monday, the US took over the Presidency of the UN Security Council, announced a discussion on Ethiopia for Wednesday. Its hostility towards Eritrea and Ethiopia, is palpable. The pace, frantic! It’s trying to rush a decision, before others are prepared & before wild allegations are exposed. The mad rush is meant to impress & instil fear of their "change in policy", with threats/bullying. Desperate, to regain lost shine/domination at any cost! So blinded with arrogance, they can't see they are defying their obligations on Human Rights & non interference. The US and EU are now openly hostile, to Eritrea and Ethiopia.

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Horn of Africa: Seismic Events, Trends and Challenges

By: Tesfay Abraham

https://shabait.com/2021/03/02/horn-of- ... hallenges/

GENERAL

Mar 2, 2021

GUEST COLUMN



The Horn of Africa is a significant landmass, with a combined population of around 200 million people. Located at the crossroads between the Middle East and Africa and straddling along the strategic Red Sea maritime route, its historical and geopolitical importance is too palpable to merit elaboration.

For the past sixty years, the Horn was bedeviled by its share of inter-State and intra-State conflicts and turmoil. Ethiopia went to war twice with Somalia, both in 1963 and 1978. Although the historical causes are not exactly analogous, Ethiopia also went to war twice with Eritrea – 1961 until 1991 and the border war that raged between the two countries from 1998 until 2000. Somalia has been engulfed in endless internal conflicts, for the last 30 years. The Sudan was similarly enveloped in intermittent internal wars with the South, which culminated in the independence of the latter in 2001. The list is long!

These bleak episodes in the contemporary history of the region do not insinuate an innately unstable and conflict-prone region, susceptible to perennial strife and turmoil. State formations follow complex trajectories, all over the world. In the Horn, the past six decades were perhaps peculiar junctures where the phase of State formation was acute indeed.

New winds of hope and optimism began to unfold in the Horn, in 2018. In Ethiopia, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed came to power in a culmination of popular opposition to the TPLF’s policy of institutionalized ethnicity, monopoly of power by a minority regime in the economic, security and defense sectors, and, heavy-handed repression with repetitive atrocities bordering on ethnic cleansing in various parts of the country. The reformist government in Ethiopia had thus to grapple with a slew of contentious political issues, to reverse the legacy of ethnic polarization and set the country on the right footing.

In tandem with far-reaching domestic changes, the new Ethiopian Government soon signed a Joint Declaration of Peace and Friendship with Eritrea that ended the state of two decades of conflict and that was predicated on unequivocal acceptance and implementation of the EEBC Arbitral Award. Shortly thereafter, Eritrea, Ethiopia and Somalia signed similar agreements of cooperation aimed at cultivating and consolidating enduring ties between them for comprehensive economic cooperation. These new frameworks of cooperation are inclusive in intent, to bring on board other States in the Horn.

But strong undercurrents were set in motion from the outset, to roll back the new and prospective regional configuration. A principal actor in this regressive trend was the TPLF clique which could not fathom the changed reality in Ethiopia and that resorted to classical tactics – supporting subversive groups, selected assassinations, incubation,and support of armed movements etc. – to induce chaos and mayhem. Simultaneously, it embarked on a massive build-up of an army within the army in Ethiopia – as well as sabotaging the peace agreement with Eritrea.

Sadly, the TPLF’s perilous acts were tacitly supported by influential forces in Europe and elsewhere who had invested so much in the TPLF regime in past decades. By all accounts, the TPLF regime received close to 40 billion US dollars in budgetary and project funds from a plethora of multilateral and bilateral donors when it was at the helm of power in Ethiopia from 2008 until 2018 alone.

A vivid illustration of this support was manifested clearly in the position of the European Union and other players, after the events of November 3rd last year.

As it is well known, the TPLF launched a pre-emptive and massive military attack on all the positions of the Northern Command at that time. The objective was to totally neutralize the Northern Command, which possessed around 80% of the EDF’s total arsenal. The TPLF killed several hundred non-Tigrayan soldiers within the Northern Command and its overall plan was to topple the central government, once it had pacified the Northern Command. Subsequent plans included military action against Eritrea to advance its avowed “regime change” agenda as well as incorporation of Eritrean sovereign territories for its long-term, multi-layered, aims and aspirations.

This dangerous scheme has failed, with much cost to the region. But both during the early weeks of fighting and thereafter, when the TPLF was defeated with few remnants of its forces hiding in remote mountains and ravines in the Region, the dominant chorus in Europe and in the international humanitarian and NGO communities, remains still tilted towards somehow salvaging the TPLF regime.

The conflict has certainly exacerbated, the humanitarian situation in Tigray. The TPLF callously launched the war in November – the peak harvest season in the Tigray Region and the Horn as a whole. Prior to the war and for the last eleven years since the G-7 Summit in Georgia, 1.6 million impoverished farmers in rural Tigray have remained beneficiaries of food assistance under the Global Safety Net. So a precarious situation may have been aggravated by the war, that the TPLF launched callously. This humanitarian situation surely requires urgent attention and this is being addressed by the Ethiopian Government, with support from its international and regional partners

But the problem is confounded by the failure to differentiate between the root cause of the current crisis and the unprecedented and grave danger that it posed to regional peace and stability, and, its humanitarian consequences which must be addressed. This untenable situation stems, from apparent reluctance by certain quarters to condemn the TPLF‘s reckless military schemes and instead look for some accommodation with its remnants.

The lopsided push for salvaging the disbanded TPLF clique, is also linked to the unwarranted demonization campaigns against Eritrea. The latter is portrayed – contrary to the reality – as “exacerbating the conflict” in Ethiopia. Repugnant and fabricated accusations against Eritrea – at times with photo-shopped images – range from perpetration of hideous massacres to sexual violence and abduction of refugees. The latest gimmick in this relentless defamation campaign against Eritrea is the Amnesty International fabricated report, on “the massacre in Axum”. There is compelling and mounting evidence – including Ethiopian private and public TV programmes on the celebrations of St Mary’s day that were broadcast on November 30th last year, on the very same day of the annual celebrations – that unequivocally demonstrate that this allegation is preposterous lie.

These deplorable accusations are concocted daily by the network of TPLF accomplices – most of them long-hired by the clique when it monopolized power in Ethiopia. But, it is also true that this conundrum is not the work of media-savvy networks and individuals alone. It is clear that this ploy is fully supported by certain powers in Europe and elsewhere, who continue to push for their misguided policy of salvaging the EPLF from the abyss that it created in the first place.

This policy perspective is myopic and fraught with perilous consequences to the region. Humanitarian problems need to be addressed with urgency to preclude suffering of the civilian population, created by the TPLF’s reckless military acts. But they should not be misconstrued, in a perverted way, to advance ulterior political ends and salvage remnants of the criminal TPLF clique.

[Zmeselo]

Ethiopia: Fixers for foreign journalists detained in Tigray.

Fitsum Berhane, who was working with the AFP news agency, was arrested by uniformed Ethiopian soldiers on Friday; Alula Akalu, a fixer for the Financial Times, was arrested on Saturday.

Local journalist Tamirat Yemane was also detained by the military on Saturday, for unknown reasons. The arrests came a day after an official of Ethiopia's ruling party warned that the govt,

will take measures against those misleading international media

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