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Ethiopia will own one of the berths in Kenya's Lamu port, and the two countries are working to speed up the issue of the title deed.

"When President Uhuru Kenyatta visited Ethiopia in March, Prime Minister Ahmed Abiy discussed with him the issue of a title deed for the land we've been allocated in Lamu where the berth will sit, and he undertook to have it speeded up," Ethiopia's ambassador to Kenya Meles Alem, told The EastAfrican in Nairobi.

President Kenyatta was in Addis Ababa in early March as a head of a large business delegation, and Prime Minister Abiy presided over a two-day Kenya-Ethiopia Trade and Investment Forum in the Ethiopian capital.

Over 400 business leaders from Kenya and Ethiopia attended the investment forum.

The two leaders said at the forum that the Lamu Port-South Sudan-Ethiopia Transport Corridor (Lapsset), was central to the unlocking of the economic potential not just of their two countries, but of the entire East African region.

Progress on the Lapsset Corridor project, a vast undertaking of ports, pipelines, roads, and railways serving Kenya, Ethiopia, and South Sudan in the first phase, had been halting until the uptick in recent months.

In October, Kenya completed the first berth of the Ksh32 billion ($320 million) Lamu Port, and construction of a second berth is underway.

When completed, Lamu port will have 32 berths, with Kenya betting that would give it the edge in the intense port race along the Bab el-Mandab (which connects the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden), and the Indian Ocean lane from Mogadishu to Maputo.

Mr Meles however denied suggestions reported in The EastAfrican that Ethiopia's recent rapprochement with erstwhile foe Eritrea, and stake and investment in several Horn of Africa ports, meant it was turning its back on Lamu and Lapsset.

Ethiopia has stakes in Doraleh, Port of Djibouti, Khartoum's largest seaport, Port Sudan, and has invested $80 million for a 19 per cent stake in Somaliland's port of Berbera, and is also seeking a holding in Eritrea's Assab port.

"Ethiopia is a country of 110 million people, and the Lamu port will be particularly critical for us in serving the southern part of our country," Mr Meles said.

"Kenya and Ethiopia have the longest standing mutual defence pact between two African countries, so our strategic interests have a long history and endure", he said. "With a title deed, we should be able not just to invest in Lamu, but more widely in Lapsset," Meles added.

The Kenya-Ethiopia Defence Pact was signed in 1964 between Kenya's founding president Jomo Kenyatta, and Ethiopia's Emperor Haile Selassie.

Kenyatta and Selassie were very close, with the former enabling the latter to get a large piece of land a spitting distance from State House Nairobi to build the Ethiopian embassy.

The Kenyan Embassy in Addis Ababa is closer to the National Palace, located next to the major bigger Embassies such as Russia and Belgium.

Security angle

Meles couldn't be drawn to comment on the wider state of geopolitics in the Horn of Africa, but analysts say the 55-year-old defence pact, and the proliferation of foreign military bases in the Horn of Africa, mean that in the long-term, Lamu will present to Ethiopia a level of security other ports don't.

Ethiopia is the largest landlocked country by population in the world. Within the country's national security establishment, there is unease about the proliferation of foreign military bases in the Horn.

There are 10 military bases in the Horn of Africa, with six in Djibouti by the US, France, Italy, Japan, China and Saudi Arabia.

Eritrea hosts the United Arab Emirates base, and a Russian logistics base is also forming there. Somalia hosts a Turkish military training base, while the semi-autonomous territory of Somaliland hosts UAE's second base.

A berth at Lamu sitting on land that it owns, would give Ethiopia tremendous ability to hedge against strategic risk, in ways other Horn of Africa don't.

Indeed the ongoing new foreign policy debate in Addis calls for a stake over the Red Sea and, and diplomatic sources say Ethiopia also wants to launch a naval force. Such a force could, foreseeably, be based in Lamu.

Domestic demands

Ethiopia is currently one of Africa's fastest growing economies and, though landlocked, also has the continent's largest state-owned shipping line.

Prime Minister Abiy's reforms, have also opened the doors for long-pent up grievances and local nationalist demands to explode.

There are several new demands for regional autonomy, and more protests than can be counted on the finger tips. The country needs dramatic economic growth and creation of opportunities to soak up many of those demands.

Ethiopians with a sense of history will also be mindful that the domestic price for disruption in the Bab el-Mandab, and further north, can be high.

Scholars have noted that the 1967-75 Suez Canal closure, during the Egypt-Israel conflict had far reaching impact on world trade with a major increase in shipping costs from the Middle East, Asia and East Africa to Europe, and hit Ethiopia hard.

The resulting economic downturn contributed to unrest and the 1974 revolution that ousted Emperor Selassie. And that was at a time when Eritrea was still part of Ethiopia and it had a port. Now it doesn't.

Owning a small slice of terminal in Lamu port, even in a foreign land, would likely be a better deal for Ethiopia in the long term, than being a paying tenant at the mercy of a landlord in a vast port anywhere else.

Read the original article on East African.

Source=https://allafrica.com/stories/201911260543.html

On Tuesday afternoon there was another attack on a journalist in the London area. This time the target was Amanuel Eyasu, the founder and editor of Assena TV.

The incident bore a striking resemblance to the attack on the journalist Martin Plaut in November 2018. Then a man who called himself Jacob Ghebremeohin posed as an Eritrean with information from home, arranged a meeting at the British Library before flinging a basin of milk, flour and eggs over Martin. Jacob Ghebremeohin was found guilty of assault, fined and bound over, for the attack.

Jacob Ghebremeohin during the attack on Martin Plaut

Yesterday’s attack on was allegedly also carried out by Jacob (or Yakob) Ghebremeohin.

Amanuel Eyasu says he was contacted by a woman who said she had come from Eritrea and wanted to share information with him. They arranged to meet at Putney Bridge Station at 2.30.

When Amanuel arrived he found a group of four or five men and one woman onlooker. They tried to corner him and to throw liquid over him, but he retreated towards the station, where the incident was captured on CCTV.

Some of the liquid went over his trousers, but most missed its target. There followed a fracas during which Amanuel defended himself, but received kicks to his legs.

Most of the assailants ran away, but one man – allegedly Jacob Ghebremeohin – was detained until the police arrived, when he was arrested. Amanuel, who gave the police a statement, refering to the prior attack on Martin Plaut, was not seriously injured, although he is bruised and his clothing has been damaged.

On hearing of the personal attack on Amanuel, the Chairman of Assenna Foundation, Habte Hagos said:

“I am shocked and appalled that such an attack has again happened in broad daylight on the streets of London by PFDJ sympathisers. This is an unprovoked and cowardly act, and I commend the British police for their swift act in apprehending one of the attackers. The others have been captured on CCTV cameras and I am sure they will be in handcuffs before too long.

Unlike our fellow citizens in Eritrea, we live in a country where the rule of law is paramount and that no one can go around attacking people in the manner these brainwashed thugs have done without being punished.

Amanuel has tirelessly worked for his country, putting in as much as 20 hours 24/7 to expose the suffering inflicted on the Eritrean people by Isaias and his handful cliques over many years. Amanuel’s achievement in this regard is second to none and he is hugely admired by many peace loving and nationalist Eritreans across the world.

Like the cowards who attacked him, Amanuel could have kept his silence but he chose to speak out on behalf of his people. Only fools or people with interest can stand outside and clap their hands whilst an arsonists burns down their home – any ordinary person would of course try to stop them by all means.

Destruction is precisely what Isaias and his cliques are doing to our beloved country for which so much blood was sacrificed to liberate. These people do not care about the huge number of young Eritreans that perish in the desert and at sea to escape torture, enslavement and to simply live an ordinary life; to get education, to work and to start a family.

Rights denied to them by the unelected ruler in Asmara who childishly trivialise their suffering by asking “Who told them to go?”. Isaias and his clique do not care about the Eritrean people. All they care about is ensuring, in anyway they can, for the world to remain ignorant of their crimes. This is why they attack justice seekers such as Amanuel.

This cowardly attack on Amanuel will not stop the excellent work he does and has been doing for a long time. The Assenna Foundation Board is committed to supportin him in that endeavour. Lawyers have been informed of the brutal attack yesterday and Assenna Foundation Board will take all necessary action to bring the perpetrators to justice.

We will fight injustice with justice. Our martyrs gave their lives in order we Eritreans can live in our homeland under the rule of law – free from oppression and fear. To build a country where every Eritrean wishes to live in rather than flee from. Freedom is not free as we know it from our bitter history. Time to remain silent whilst our own people are tortured day in and day out is long gone – indeed silence is now complicit to the crimes being committed by Isaias.

We must peacefully fight to save our people and the very fabric of Eritrean society which Isaias is hellbent to destroy. Our martyrs expect no less of us. May they rest in peace.

Amanuel Eyasu holds MA in Journalism and MA in Information Management. Amanuel has worked as a head teacher, journalist and as the head of Eritrean News Agency, Asmara and Environs. He also worked as a Broadcast Media Coordinator with the BBC. As a journalist, Amanuel covered closed sessions of the Eritrean Cabinet for many years. He has interviewed senior politicians, including Isaias Afewerki and the late Ethiopian PM Meles Zenawi. Amanuel is the founder of Assenna Foundation and current editor of assenna.com and Radio Assenna.

Source=https://eritreahub.org/eritrean-pro-government-activist-carries-out-another-london-attack