Eritrea Wire

The U.S. and the European Union voiced concern over Nigeria’s decision to indefinitely ban Twitter after the U.S. social media giant deleted a tweet from the president’s account for violating its rules.

International human rights groups have also condemned the move, which followed previous attempts by the government of Africa’s most populous country to regulate social media.

Nigerian telecoms operators complied with a government directive Friday to suspend access to Twitter indefinitely.

The diplomatic missions of the EU, U.S., Britain, Canada and Ireland issued a joint statement late Saturday condemning the ban.

“Banning systems of expression is not the answer,” it said.

“Precisely the moment when Nigeria needs to foster inclusive dialogue and expression of opinions, as well as share vital information in this time of the Covid-19 pandemic.”?

“The path to a more secure Nigeria lies in more, not less, communication,” it added.

More than?39 million Nigerians have a Twitter account, according to NOI polls, a public opinion and research organization based in Nigeria.

The platform has played an important role in public discourse in the country, with hashtags #BringBackOurGirls after Boko Haram kidnapped 276 schoolgirls in 2014, and #EndSARS during anti-police brutality protests last year.

The government’s suspension came after Twitter on Wednesday deleted a remark on President Muhammadu Buhari’s account in which he referred to the country’s civil war four decades ago in a warning about recent unrest.

The 78-year-old president, a former general, referred to “those misbehaving” in recent violence in the southeast, where officials blame a proscribed separatist group IPOB for attacks on police and election offices.

‘Misinformation’

“Those of us in the fields for 30 months, who went through the war, will treat them in the language they understand,” the president had posted on Twitter.

The presidency denied late on Saturday that the Twitter suspension was a response to the removal of that post. ?

“There has been a litany of problems with the social media platform in Nigeria, where misinformation and fake news spread through it have had real world violent consequences,” a presidency spokesman Garba Shehu said in a statement. ?

Shehu said the removal of Buhari’s tweet was “disappointing” and said “major tech companies must be alive to their responsibilities.”

Twitter said it was “deeply concerned by the blocking of Twitter in Nigeria.”

“Access to the free and #OpenInternet is an essential human right in modern society.

We will work to restore access for all those in Nigeria who rely on Twitter to communicate and connect with the world. #KeepitOn,” the company said in a statement.

“VPN app” was the second most searched trend Saturday on Google in Nigeria, as virtual private networks can enable Twitter users to bypass the ban.

Nigeria warned however that it would prosecute violators.

“Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, has directed for immediate prosecution of offenders of the Federal Government ban on Twitter operations in Nigeria,” spokesman Umar Jibrilu Gwandu said.

Amnesty International condemned the ban, calling on Nigeria to “immediately reverse the unlawful suspension.”

“This repressive action is a clear attempt to censor dissent & stifle the civic space,” Human Rights Watch researcher Anietie Ewang said.

Source: Voice of America

The US has sent its Special Envoy for the Horn of Africa on another round of shuttle diplomacy meant to secure an agreement on the use of the Nile waters in the region.

Jeffrey Feltman began his weeklong engagements on Monday, travelling to the Gulf countries of Qatar, Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates. He will travel to Nairobi by June 6.

A statement from the State Department on Wednesday said that Feltman will meet senior officials in these countries “to discuss cooperative approaches to supporting a stable and prosperous Horn of Africa, including a resolution of the dispute over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) that is acceptable to all parties.”

Feltman in May visited Egypt, Ethiopia, Eritrea and Sudan, the four countries involved in the main crises in the Horn, including a tussle over the use of the Nile. He said he was visiting the countries to address what the US called interlinked security issues in those countries.

“The Special Envoy’s travel underscores the Administration’s commitment to lead a sustained diplomatic effort to address the interlinked political, security, and humanitarian crises in the Horn of Africa, and he will coordinate US policy across the region to advance that goal,” the Department said last month.

Ethiopia, Sudan and Egypt have disagreed on how to fill the GERD, which could be Africa’s biggest hydropower generation plant with a capacity of 6400MW of power when complete.

Source: Dehai Eritrea Online

African-American actress and comedian Tiffany Haddish got praised by black lives matter activists this week for criticizing “racist” US foreign policy against Africa. President Joe Biden’s administration has come under fire for imposing economic sanctions against already poor Ethiopia and Eritrea, while providing billions of dollars for Egypt.

At the center of the controversy is a major hydroelectric dam on the Nile river built by Ethiopia for electricity and to get out of poverty. Egypt has threatened to use its US-funded air-force to blow up Ethiopian development projects as well as use Sudan to invade Ethiopia.

For decades, Western-funded Arab countries like Egypt have monopolized the Nile river while Black African countries like Ethiopia, Eritrea, Kenya, Uganda and others have been banned from using the river.

While over 80% of the Nile resources are in Ethiopia, the country has used less than 1% because only Egypt was allowed to utilize the river by Western institutions like the IMF and World Bank (WB). As the result, over 99% of Egypt has electricity and food security, compared to less than 30% of impoverished Ethiopia.

To complicate the matter, the US government began hiding atrocities committed by an ethnic supremacist terrorist group in northern Ethiopia. Known as the Tigrayan Peoples Liberation Front (TPLF), the terror group waged a deadly insurrection in the northern Tigray region of Ethiopia and blew up airports in Eritrea. Tiffany, whose parent have Eritrean roots, expressed her opposition online to western policies that hurt black African countries. Other black activists also noted a racist hypocrisy that Western nations expect global solidarity to condemn armed insurrectionists & terrorists targeting White countries in Europe & America but they legitimize rebels and terrorists in African countries like Ethiopia.

Over 1,200 civilians have been killed by TPLF terrorists before Ethiopian authorities (helped by Eritrea) clampdown and arrested most of the group’s leaders. The TPLF fighters have also been caught wearing the uniform of Ethiopian and Eritrean troops while committing atrocities and ambushing aid convoys. In one case, the TPLF terrorists dressed up in Eritrean uniform and began video-tapping themselves mutilating bodies of refugees; for western media consumption, to frame the Eritrean government for human rights abuses.

Since the TPLF had received $30 billion dollars of American aid in the past years (which Forbes magazine said have been siphoned off to offshore accounts) TPLF diaspora members have managed to hire expensive lobbyists to portray themselves as victims using the “TigrayGenocide” myth. Since then, critics say the TPLF has provided the cover for racist US foreign policy decisions, which are using human rights as pretext for intervention.

New Independent investigations so far have shown that less than 50 Tigrayan civilians have died after months of conflict, which contradicted the false media narratives of genocide in Tigray. The investigations have revealed that TPLF lobbyists have portrayed hundreds of TPLF fighters who died in the battlefield as innocent civilian victims; in order to depict a false account of genocide. Another false narrative of widespread famine was also discredited this week after authorities revealed that food aid already began reaching the Tigray province despite obstacles and terrorist ambushes by the TPLF. The United Nation’s FAO confirmed that seeds for farming is being distributed and Western Tigray areas (that are native to the Welkait people) have the least drought risk comparably, due to recent progresses made. Ethiopian government is self-financing almost all the food aid in Tigray, while Western NGOs are accused of wasting aid dollars. US officials like Samantha Power have also been criticized for allegedly pushing racist stereotypes and “misinformation about Tigray to increase fundraising,” according to press secretary Billene Seyoum.

Critics of Western policy said famine conditions in Ethiopia were more widespread in 2016 when the TPLF controlled the region than it is today.

Nonetheless, President Biden’s US government has used the false narratives of “genocide” and “famine” created by TPLF lobbyists and supporters as a pretext to support Egypt’s ambitions against Ethiopia and the Horn of Africa.

The controversy escalated this week as Joe Biden’s US representative Jeffrey Feltman began assembling more Arab countries, including the Qatar & Saudis, to block Ethiopia’s infrastructure projects and put more pressure against both Ethiopia and Eritrea.

In response to Tiffany’s opposition to racist US foreign policies; several supporters of the ethnic supremacist TPLF group have been defaming and cyber-bullying the actress online. Tiffany Haddish is not the first African-American to criticize US foreign policy, as Rev. Jesse Jackson previously condemned US blockade of Ethiopia’s hydroelectric projects. The African-American Civil Rights leader raised the alarm in 2020 that US policy in the horn of Africa is hurting black people and risks making Ethiopia “the colony of Egypt.”

Source: Dehai Eritrea Online