The Human Rights League of the Horn of Africa (HRLHA) held its 3rd annual members meeting on August 28. 2010 in Toronto. The members discussed the annual report presented by the executive Director of the Organization as well as the action plan of the next fiscal year and unanimously agreed to work hard towards the successful implementation of the 2010/2011 action plan of the organization. Members have also discussed all the strengths and shortcomings of the agency, and put forward some collective means of improvements. Below is the full text of the year 2009/2010 activity report:
Human Rights League of the Horn of Africa/HRLHA 3rd Members Annual Meeting
Annual Activity Report 2009/2010
August 28, 2010
INTRODUCTION:-
In 2009/2010 fiscal year the volunteers of HRLHA once again proved their commitment to defend human dignity. The human rights situation in the horn in general and in Ethiopia in particular is declining every year. It is very unfortunate that the 2010 election in Ethiopia turned back the country to authoritarian rule of TPLF/EPRDF. The Ethiopian government had proven its intolerance for opposition parties and systematically eliminated them from political game field. HRLHA believes that, the step taken by EPRDF government will jeopardize the building of democratic system . A complete failure of democratization in Ethiopia which led to absolute win of 547-seat parliament, clearing opposition party members will escalate the instability in the country..
HRLHA expressed its concerns about the complete failure of democracy and the winning of authoritarian rule in Ethiopia in its press release No 6,2010.
Today Ethiopia is at the top in the list of countries with the highest records in violating the fundamental freedoms and human rights of its citizen. Ethiopian government’s worst human rights record has been criticised by International human rights organisations, including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and others. Western Governments and agencies including EU and US state department and United Nations Human Rights Council have expressed their deep concerns regarding the human rights violations in Ethiopia.
The Ethiopian government commits all forms of human rights violations, mass and extra-judicial killings, detentions with out trial, politically motivated death penalty sentence, arbitrary arrests, torture, kidnappings and disappearances, displacement and etc.. Because of this, in the past 19 years, hundreds of thousands of Oromos and others were killed, arrested and imprisoned, kidnapped, sentenced to death and life in prison and thousands fled to all neighboring countries to save their lives where the Ethiopian Government harassment is also crossing the border with them.
Today many Oromos farmers are landless. Their land was given to the transnational corporations and rich governments like Saud Arabia, South Korea and others without the consent and compensation to the land owners. Many Oromo farmers opposed the crime done against them. Because of this hundreds of Oromos are in prison. HRLHA presented the effect and consequence of the land Grab in Oromia on 13th Session UN human Rights Council.
During the fiscal year 2009/2010, HRLHA documented more human rights violations committed in the Horn of Africa than the previous two years and submitted human rights abuses in Ethiopia documents to the UN human Rights Council at different times.
Like the previous years, lack of adequate financial resource has been HRLHA’s biggest challenge to cover the wide range human rights violations in that region. This problem was reflected specially in deploying sufficient man power to monitor, investigate and report on human rights abuses that are committed in various forms.
In 2009/2010 fiscal year the attempts done to organize some kind of fundraising activities such as the “Night for Human Rights”. to solve the financial problem was not encouraging. The insufficient fund for the job. create some extra pressures on the individuals that are directly involved in HRLHA’s day-to-day activities. HRLHA call up on all its members and supporters to take this seriously and work on it.
In all past two HRLHA annual activity reports we mentioned that the success achieved with very limited financial resource was the result of the commitments and dedications of the staff members and the founders. This fact remains as it is during the third fiscal year.
Summary of 2009/2010 Developments and a Look Ahead to 2011
2009/2010 was a successful year for HRLHA, and the successes undoubtedly indicate that HRLHA is one of human rights defenders that could monitor and report on human rights abuses in the Horn of Africa.
Major successes and achievements for HRLHA in 2009/2010 include:
1. Protection of Human Rights
1.1 Organizational Structure and Human Rights Abuse Reporting;–
In the 3rd fiscal year, HRLHA’s activities were mainly focused like in the pervious years on covering the human rights violations. To this effect, we maintained the structure of the organization in all countries in the sub-region. In addition we continued to work on , the massive human Rights abuses committed in Yemen against refugees from countries like Ethiopia, Somalia, Djibouti, and Eritrea has forced the organization to go and operate beyond its region of target.
Countries of the Horn including the Republic of Yemen have similar attitude towards asylum seekers coming from the neighbor countries in search of protection. In violation of Universal Declaration of Human Rights, articles 13 and 14, which guarantee the freedom of movement and the right to seek and to enjoy asylum in other countries, these countries fail to protect fundamental human rights of the asylum seekers in their territories. They instead intimidate asylum seekers by denying them even shelters and, in some cases, handing them over to the governments of their countries of origin.
For example,
- More than 1500 Somalia, Oromo and Other nationals were deported from Puntland State of Somalia in July, 2010 only.
- The Republic of Yemen also deported more than 100 Oromo refugees only in 2010. HRLHA expressed its concerns to those Countries and the world community about the human rights violations and the illegal or forcefully deportation of the refugees.
1.2. Networking and Relationships:-
It is one of HRLHA’s main objectives and strong believes to establish partnership with other similar organizations in order to strengthen its efforts of defending human rights. In the past three years, HRLHA’s head office worked closely with other human rights organizations. Apart from networking and correspondences for purposes of information dissemination, we had the opportunities to develop relationships with UN human Rights council head office, UNHCR head offices, with EU human Rights council and with different governmental human rights agencies and offices.
To be specific, in this 3rd fiscal year, we participated in three international conferences and presented five papers on issues relating to our underlying agenda and target on the horn sub-region.
- In March 2010 HRLHA presented a paper on the formation of its branch office in London, UK on the “Roll of HRLHA in the Horn of Africa and its advocacy strategy”.
- In March 2010 HRLHA Presented on 13th session of UN human Rights Council (Geneva March 1-26, 2010),
“Promotion and Protection of all human Rights, civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights, including the rights to development”, “Human Rights Situations in Ethiopia that Require the Council’s Attention”
- In March 2010 HRLHA Presented on 13th session of UN human Rights Council (Geneva March 1-26, 2010),
“Massive Land Grabs and their Consequences in Sub-Saharan Africa Countries
- 4. In June 2010 HRLHA presented on UN Human Rights Council 19th Session
“ HRLHA’s REPORT ON IMPLEMENTATION OF THE ICCPR (COUNTRY – ETHIOPIA)”,
- 5. In August 2010 HRLHA presented a paper on OSA conference
“Human Rights Abuse in Ethiopia, The Plight of Oromo Refugees in Somaliland, Puntland and Yemen”
2. Opportunities and Challenges Ahead
Human rights situations in most parts of the world are never improving; and the task for human rights defenders is getting bigger and bigger. The major problem HRLHA has been facing in accomplishing its objectives is lack of adequate financial resource. HRLHA expects financial support from funders and individual donors. In an attempt to reach potential donors, HRLHA recently submitted to donors, through its head office, more than twenty applications for financial aid. We need all members of this organization to work very hard in this regard along with HRLHA office. We have laid down the program of fund raising event in 2010 which will be announced soon. If every member of the organization is not working hard the result will remain as past years.We urge every member of this organization to do their part in this regard too. We believe problems could easily be solved if we join hands. For our financial problem, in the first place, the solution will be the efforts of our members.
In the two past fiscal years, we mentioned that the organization struggled a lot to survive from month to month. That remains the same. However, despite the financial problems we had, our reporters in five Horn of African countries like, Ethiopia, Djibouti, Sudan, Somalia, Somaliland, and Kenya showed their continued commitment to contribute to the efforts of defending human rights by reporting human rights violations on daily basis.
The financial challenges HRLHA faced today also directly resulted in the lack of its own office, the lack of staff and, above all, lack of financial capacity to pay for the reporters.
Meeting the challenges will require renewed readiness, determination and commitment of our staff, our reporters and our members.
3. Expenditure and Revenue
Expenditure and revenue of the organization are audited by our internal auditor based on the information provided from the activity of the organization. The Report on the Program Expenditures and Revenues of the consolidated year is attached to this report on separate page
Conclusion;-
Looking ahead to 2011, we will be working to solidify HRLHA’s current programs and explore opportunities for new once. We believe our operation in the Horn of Africa should be wider, deeper and stronger as far as human rights abusers continue their impunity against humanity. Therefore, in the next fiscal year, we need more commitment and dedication from all members and supporters.
In its operations of three years under very difficult situation, HRLHA has already shown that our ideas can be translated in to practice and can produce important results. We look forward to continuing with the quick march in 2011 fiscal year. We have to promise to ourselves once again to continue forward with courage.
“We Fight for Human Rights”
Thank you,
Garoma Wakessa; Executive Director
Toronto/ Canada, August 28, 2010
