Mekelle፡4 June 2024 (Tigray Herald)
Ethiopia has signed a $1 billion loan deal with South Korea.
Ethiopia has signed a $1 billion loan deal with South Korea to finance infrastructure, science, technology, health and urban development, state media reported on Sunday. The loan agreement was inked during a discussion between the Ethiopian government delegation, led by Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, and South Korean officials in Seoul on Sunday. Abiy travelled to Seoul to participate in the South Korea-Africa Summit due to be held on Tuesday.
2) US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken has called for the de-escalation of tensions between Ethiopia and Somalia. Blinken made the appeal in a telephone conversation with Somalia’s President Hassan Mohammed on Saturday. Sources told Wazema that the US was unhappy about Somalia’s recent decision to exclude Ethiopian troops from a multinational peacekeeping force, which is expected to replace the African Union Transition Mission in Somalia (ATMIS) after the latter’s complete withdrawal in December 2024. The sources said Blinken was worried that the complete withdrawal of Ethiopian troops from Somalia, and the tension between the two countries over the sea access Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between Addis Ababa and the breakaway Somaliland, could create more instability in the region. Blinken said the US would try to persuade Ethiopia not to implement the MoU without Mogadishu’s consent, Wazema has learnt.
3) Gunmen killed a woreda administrator of Efrata Gidem woreda, North Shewa zone, Amhara region, on Saturday. The woreda communication office said, Albes Adefrash, was killed by “extremist forces”. In June last year, “extremist” forces killed two security officials in Shewa Robit town of the same zone. North Shewa zone has been a scene of armed clashes between the Fano militia and the Federal Government forces, as well as between the former and the rebel Oromo Liberation Army (OLA), which often crosses into the area from the neighbouring Oromia region.
4) The Ethiopian government last week endorsed a revised Bill that will allow deregistered political parties to regain their legal status. According to the Bill, approved by the Council of Ministers, deregistered political parties could be allowed to regain their status once they have expressed commitment to renounce violence. The current Electoral, Political Parties’ Registration, and the Electoral Ethics Bill lacks provisions to lift the revocation of the legal status of political parties once they are deregistered by the National Election Board of Ethiopia. The draft Bill will have to be approved by the Federal Parliament to take effect. The national electoral board revoked the legality of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), the former ruling party of the war-wracked Tigray region, in January 2021, citing the party’s engagement in “armed insurrection” against the Federal Government during the 2020-22 war in northern Ethiopia. Earlier, TPLF petitioned the board to reverse the decision, but the latter rejected it saying there was no legal ground to do so. It was TPLF which signed the Pretoria Cessation of Hostilities Agreement (CoHA) with the Federal Government in November 2022 after it had been banned.
5) The Joint Council of Political Parties told the Sheger radio that Ethiopia’s national dialogue could not succeed without the participation of all the parties involved in the armed conflicts. The council called for an end to all armed clashes, and urged all the parties to join the ongoing national dialogue. The council also called on the government of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed to create enabling conditions for various armed groups to participate in the dialogue. The council has reaffirmed that it would ask the government to give security guarantees for armed groups if they wished to participate in the dialogue. The commission has not yet approached the armed groups in Amhara and Oromia regions. The National Dialogue Commission, which is mandated with facilitating the planned national dialogue, has no authority to play a leading role in ending the ongoing armed conflicts, particularly in Amhara and Oromia.
6) Japan has pledged $6.7 million to support Ethiopia’s disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration (DDR) programme, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) said in a statement on Sunday. The funds will be used to support “the procurement of equipment, and training to improve the operational capacity of the commission [the National Rehabilitation Commission] to demobilise ex-combatants from camps” in Ethiopia, said UNDP, adding that a portion will also be used to rehabilitate health facilities in the war-wracked Tigray region. The UNDP is mandated to administer the funds for the implementation of the DDR programme. The Ethiopian Rehabilitation Commission (NRC) plans to disarm, demobilise and reintegrate 371,971 ex-combatants across the country, but says it has not received enough financial support to implement the programme. NRC Commission Temesgen Tilahun called on partners to strengthen their support to the programme, the statement added.
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