[ad_1]
One of the world’s leading experts on Ethiopia, Professor Kjetil Tronvoll, says he has been exposed to a hate campaign from the country. He has received several death threats.
Professor Kjetil Tronvoll is Professor of Peace and Conflict Studies at Bjørknes University College in Oslo and has been researching Ethiopia and Eritrea since the early 1990s. In recent months, he has been prompted by representatives of the authorities Ethiopians and threatened with death by Ethiopians in Norway and other countries. Photo: Berit Roald / NTB
Tronvoll is Professor of Peace and Conflict Studies at Bjørknes University College in Oslo. He has been researching Ethiopia and Eritrea since the early 1990s.
He also has experience as a professor of human rights at the University of Oslo. Tronvoll, among other things, has been associated with the London School of Economics, Columbia University, and Addis Ababa University in Ethiopia as a researcher.
Ethnic and political divisions are strong in Ethiopia, and Tronvoll is unfamiliar with incitement and threats.
However, when Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, winner of the 2019 Peace Prize, launched a major military offensive against the Tigray Liberation Front (TPLF) in November last year, it took off completely.
The Ethiopian government’s military offensive in the Tigray region has claimed the lives of an unknown number of people and forced tens of thousands to flee (pictured) to neighboring Sudan. Photo: AP / NTB
Black campaign
The professor’s analysis of the offensive was not well received in Addis Ababa. Authorities launched what Tronvoll describes as a well-organized smear campaign.
The head of the Ethiopian intelligence service INSA, Shumete Gizaw, accused Tronvoll, among others, of being paid by TPLF to spread misinformation about the war in the Tigray region.
The allegations, which Tronvoll strongly denies, were reported by Ethiopia’s state news agency ENA. They were quickly picked up by Ethiopians in exile, also in Norway. It unleashed a series of threats, including death threats.
He asked the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for help
At the end of December, Tronvoll contacted the Foreign Office and asked for help.
“There is an active, coordinated hate campaign against me by Ethiopian activists spreading falsehoods and baseless accusations, apparently in coordination with Ethiopian government agencies,” he said.
Tronvoll requested that the case be pursued with the Ethiopian authorities and demanded that the accusation of the head of INSA be dropped.
The Foreign Ministry confirmed that they took the matter seriously. They promised in mid-January that the Norwegian embassy in Addis Ababa “would broach the matter with the Ethiopian authorities.
Abiy Request
However, the heat did not subside. The Tronvoll Ministry drew attention to this.
– I can inform you that the formal “campaign” against me in the state media, where unfounded accusations are made, continues, he wrote in a new letter to the ministry.
The statements of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed also do not indicate that the Ethiopian regime will stop its attempts to blacken investigators like Tronvoll.
Earlier this month, the Ethiopian Prime Minister summoned Twitter message Ethiopians abroad to “strike back” at those who criticize the events in the country.
Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2019, but has received strong international criticism for the military offensive he ordered last fall in the Tigray region. Recently, he urged compatriots abroad to “strike back” at those who criticize him. Photograph: Stian Lysberg Solum / NTB
I had to cancel
There is little doubt that the message was followed. A few days later, Tronvoll, together with experts from Egypt and Somalia, would participate in a debate under the auspices of the Joint Council for Africa. The topic was the conflict that has arisen between Ethiopia and neighboring countries as a result of the country’s great steam project on the Nile.
The event resulted in further death threats against Tronvoll. Ethiopian nationalists and Amhara activists were reportedly behind this. Therefore, the Joint Council considered it safer to cancel.
– We had to prioritize the initiators’ own safety and experience of the situation, says Aurora Nereid, general director of the Joint Council, to Bistandsaktuelt.
Norwegian partner country
– That you receive threats when analyzing war and human rights violations is an experience I have lived with for many years. However, the fact that activists encouraged by the government in one of Norway’s partner countries managed to restrict freedom of expression in this country is remarkable, Tronvoll says.
– I hope that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Justice and Emergency Preparedness take this issue with the seriousness it requires, he adds.
Ethiopia is one of ten countries mentioned in the context of development assistance as Norway’s long-term development partner. Over the past 20 years, the country has received around NOK 6.3 billion in development assistance from Norway, Norad’s figures show.
According to the Foreign Ministry, the aid was around 500 million crowns last year and the previous year around 700 million crowns.
The Joint Council of Africa recently had to cancel an event focused on Ethiopia, after participants, including Professor Kjetil Tronvoll, received death threats. Photo: Berit Roald / NTB
No transparency
NTB has requested the Ministry of Foreign Affairs access to communication between the Norwegian embassy in Addis Ababa and the Ethiopian authorities about the campaign and the threats to which Tronvoll is exposed, but has not received a response to the request.
In a blanket response, Secretary of State Jens Frølich Holte (H) urges Tronvoll to report the threats he has received to the police.
– The defense of freedom of expression is an important part of the government’s foreign policy. In relation to the Tigray conflict, we have unfortunately seen dissidents face threats. Freedom of expression is also restricted in other ways through the arrest, deportation or harassment of journalists and analysts, he tells NTB.
Desperate call
– Foreign Minister Ine Eriksen Søreide (H) has expressed her concern about hate speech and raised respect for human rights in talks with the Ethiopian authorities. We will continue to do this. Serious threats presented on social media are police matters and should be reported, says Frølich Holte.
Tronvoll believes that it is desperate encouragement, and notes that such a review will end with a high degree of probability in dismissal.
– Therefore, I submitted a report of concern to the Police Security Service (PST) in November last year and asked them to do a risk assessment of my situation, which they rejected as outside of their “mandate,” says Tronvoll.
NTB has repeatedly asked the Ethiopian embassy in Stockholm, which is accredited to Norway, for a comment on the case, but has received no response.
[ad_2]
