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ADDIS
ABABA, ETHIOPIA After going through its worst drought in
50 years, Ethiopia is again seeing rain. In fact, in some places,
its falling too hard and has set off floods.
So while the number of people requiring food aid has dropped slightly
from 10.2 million in January to 9.7 million, according to the
latest figures, there is a new threat of disease in a population
weakened by drought.
Measles,
meningitis, malaria and scabies are on the rise. And most seriously,
there has been an outbreak of something mysteriously called AWD,
according to the Humanitarian Requirements Document, issued by
the government and humanitarian agencies on Aug. 13.
There is a high risk that AWD can spread to all regions
with high speed as there is a frequent population movement between
Addis Ababa and other regions, it warned.
The letters stand for acute watery diarrhea. It is a potentially
fatal condition caused by water infected with the vibrio cholera
bacterium. Everywhere else in the world it is simply called cholera.
But not in Ethiopia, where international humanitarian organizations
privately admit that they are only allowed to call it AWD and
are not permitted to publish the number of people affected.
The
government is apparently concerned about the international impact
if news of a significant cholera outbreak were to get out, even
though the disease is not unusual in East Africa.
This means that, hypothetically, when refugees from South Sudan
with cholera flee across the border into Ethiopia, they suddenly
have AWD instead.
In
a similar manner, exactly one year ago, when aid organizations
started sounding the alarm bells over the failed rains, government
officials were divided over whether they would call it a drought
and appeal for international aid.
Hundreds of protesters on Saturday clashed with police in Ethiopia's
capital Addis Ababa after campaigners called for nationwide protests
due to what they say is an unfair distribution of wealth in the
country. (Reuters)
The
narrative for Ethiopia in 2015 was a successful nation with double-digit
growth, and the government did not want to bring back memories
of the 1980s drought that killed hundreds of thousands and left
the country forever associated with famine.
We dont use the f-word, explained an aid worker
to me back in September, referring to famine.
Like
many of its neighbors in the region, Ethiopia has some issues
with freedom of expression and is very keen about how it is perceived
abroad. While the country has many developmental successes to
celebrate, its current sensitivity suggests it will be some time
before this close U.S. ally resembles the democracy it has long
claimed to be.
Ultimately, the government recognized there was a drought and
made an international appeal for aid. The systems put into place
over the years prevented the drought from turning into a humanitarian
catastrophe for which the country has earned praise from
its international partners.
In the same manner, even though it doesnt call it cholera,
the government is still waging a vigorous campaign to educate
people on how to avoid AWD, by boiling water and washing their
hands.
Yet
this sensitivity to bad news extends to the economic realm as
well. Critics have often criticized Ethiopias decade of
reported strong growth as being the product of cooked numbers.
The government does seem to produce rosier figures than international
institutions.After the drought, the International Monetary Fund
predicted in April that growth would drop from 10.2 percent in
2015 to just 4.5 percent in 2016.
Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn, maintained, however, that
growth would be a robust 8.5 percent, despite the falling agriculture
productivity and decreased export earnings.
In
the political realm, news of unrest and protests is suppressed.
During a weekend of demonstrations on Aug. 6 and 7, the Internet
was cut, making it difficult to find out what happened.Human rights
organizations, opposition parties and media tried to piece together
the toll from the deadly demonstrations, which according to Amnesty
International may have been up to 100.
The United Nations has called for international observers to carry
out an investigation in the affected regions, which the government
has strongly rejected even as it has dismissed estimates of casualties
without providing any of its own.
That
is one of the factors we are struggling against with this government,
the blockade of information, complained Beyene Petros, the
chairman of a coalition of opposition parties. Journalists
cannot go and verify. We cannot do that.
Local journalists are heavily constrained, and as Felix Horne
of Human Rights Watch points out, Ethiopia is one of the biggest
jailers of journalists on the continent.
Limitations on independent media, jamming of television
and radio signals, and recent blocking of social media all point
to a government afraid to allow its citizens access to independent
information, he said.
Foreign
journalists do not fare much better, especially if they attempt
to venture out of the capital to do their reporting.
In March, the New York Times and Bloomberg correspondents were
detained by police while trying to report on the disturbances
in the Oromo Region.
They were sent back to Addis Ababa and held overnight in a local
prison before being interrogated and released.
In a similar fashion, a television crew with American Public Broadcasting
Service was detained on Aug. 8 south of the capital trying to
do a story on the drought conditions.
They
and their Ethiopian fixer an accredited journalist in her
own right were released after 24 hours, and they were told
not to do any reporting outside of Addis.
In both cases the journalists were all accredited by the Government
Communication Affairs Office, with credentials that are supposed
to extend the breadth of the country but in practice are widely
ignored by local officials.
The government spokesman, Getachew Reda, has dismissed the allegations
about the information crackdown in the country and in recent appearances
on the Al Jazeera network he maintained that there are no obstacles
to information in Ethiopia.This country is open for business,
its open for the international community, people have every
right to collect whatever information they want, he said.