Aftenposten norwegian news paper
Egeland comparing aid to Ethiopia with Western countries' friendly relationship with Egypt and Tunisia before the Arab spring.
Sweden reduced its aid to Ethiopia last year from 250 to 145 one million Swedish kronor, because a number of new laws have exacerbated the human rights situation.
25 July 2012
- It is puzzling that Norway has such an extensive collaboration with a regime that in many ways represents the dictatorship, said Jan Egeland, the European Director of Human Rights Watch.
This month, 24 journalists and dissidents jailed for eight years and life for the violation of Ethiopia's controversial anti-terror legislation. Egeland says the situation for civil and political human rights is becoming worse in Ethiopia, Ethiopian and fewer are able to criticize the regime.
- The last sentence is a striking example of this, he says.
Norway expressed concern for the judgments, and pointed out that the work of human rights is central to Norway's relations with Ethiopia. But I doubt both organizations and opposition politicians have talked to Aftenposten.
- To bed with a dictator
Human Rights Watch has criticized the foreign aid significantly in several reports, including Waiting Here for Death and Development without Freedom .
- There seems to be a remarkable consensus among some of the western donor countries that one can accept the gross human rights violations in Ethiopia without requiring modification or adding on aid, while one is tough in many other places. Ethiopia has a thoroughly authoritarian regime, says European Director Jan Egeland.
He has raised the human rights situation in several meetings with the Norwegian authorities, but added that Norway is just one of several Western supporters.
He believes that the UK so far seems to assume the most uncritical attitude.
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- Where were they willing to explain away the human rights violations in all years, and said it was necessary to have a very close relationship with these countries because they were important for regional security and counter terrorism. But there is one lesson we have seen from the Arab revolutions, it is that there never is a good idea to go to bed with dictators, he says, adding that this is something that donor countries will regret the day that the Ethiopian regime eventually falls .
Norway triples aid
In February, criticized the five UN special rapporteurs Ethiopia abusing anti-terror laws to restrain the freedom of speech in this country.
Criticism came after the two Swedish journalists were sentenced to 11 years in prison in December , and three journalists and two opposition politicians a month later was sentenced to prison terms of between 14 years and life.
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But the Norwegian government decided this year to triple aid from around 200 million annually to nearly 600 million. The increase will primarily go to climate-friendly development in agriculture.
UN mission: "Gloomy picture"
In March this year met the Norwegian UN delegation to Geneva, a member of the Ethiopian Human Rights Council, which shall be the only human rights organization left in the country to engage in any monitoring of the human rights (HR).
The organization shall be under strong pressure from the authorities, writes delegation in an internal report Aftenposten has had access in.
"The people are now experiencing in practice that there is room to argue with the authorities." Writes the delegation, referring to a more stringent law for civil society organizations that were introduced in 2009.
The delegation believes that Norway should ensure independent evaluations and set up specific criteria for development cooperation.
They draw parallels with the Arab spring, pointing out that the old Arab regimes benefited from assistance without being taken into account human rights.
Fear of our Ethiopian
A lot is going forward in Ethiopia. The last two decades the country has made enormous progress in fundamental areas of development: Four times as many children go to school, child mortality has been halved, and more than twice as many people have access to clean water, according to the World Bank .
Fight against poverty has been stepped up, foreign investment is increasing rapidly, and according to The Economist , the country will have the world's third fastest growing economy in the period 2011 to 2015. But the development also creates greater differences between rich and poor and between urban and rural areas.
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Ethiopia-know and professor of human rights Kjetil Tronvoll believes the new conviction and sentence suggests that the strict regime continued.
According Tronvoll government now tries to continue the control to guard against an uprising inspired by the Arab spring. He believes it could pave the way for more turmoil after Prime Minister Meles Zenawi recently was hospitalized.
According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, the government blocked a newspaper after they printed reports of Mr. Zenawi's health.
Also, Norwegian People's Aid, Focus and Development warned against Norway's support to the Ethiopian regime.
- We are concerned that the Norwegian authorities are not careful enough when it comes to obtain unbiased information about what their money is used. This becomes especially important when Norway has now tripled aid, says Ethiopia adviser Anna Mørck of the Norwegian People's Aid to Aftenposten.no.
No specific requirements
- I am aware that someone is critical that we support. The reason that we support are three policy goals: that Ethiopia can lift people out of poverty, that they want to invest in clean energy, climate-adapted agricultural and forest conservation. They are also an important player in Africa, says political advisor Unni Berge at the Foreign Ministry.
She visited Ethiopia later than two weeks ago and says she took up the situation of human rights (MRI) of the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission.But Norway attaches no specific MR-aid requirements.
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