From: Biniam Tekle (biniamt@dehai.org)
Date: Tue Jul 22 2008 - 08:51:41 EDT
"Guelleh already owns a $5 million presidential residence in Ethiopia's
eastern town of Dire Dawa"
Ethiopia gives Djibouti's Guelleh farmland-officials
Tue 22 Jul 2008, 9:13 GMT
ADDIS ABABA, July 22 (Reuters) - Land-locked Ethiopia has given Djiboutian
President Omar Ismail Guelleh large tracts of land for wheat farming and a
lakeside holiday home, officials said on Tuesday.
The Red Sea state has been Ethiopia's major outlet to the sea since Addis
Ababa lost the ports of Assab and Massawa when Eritrea won independence in
1991.
Ethiopia gave Guelleh 7,000 hectares of land some 400 km (250 miles) south
of Addis Ababa, where government officials say he will grow wheat.
"A team of experts has already started preliminary work to set up a modern
and mechanized farm," said the officials, who spoke on the condition on
anonymity.
Guelleh, who was in Ethiopia last week with his wife and a ministerial
delegation, was also given 10,000 square metres of lakeside land some 45 km
(30 miles) east of the capital on which to build a holiday home, the
officials said.
Guelleh already owns a $5 million presidential residence in Ethiopia's
eastern town of Dire Dawa, they said.
Djibouti's port earns about $300 million a year from handling some 4.6
million tonnes of Ethiopian goods, and recently said it would raise its
tariffs on port services, prompting Ethiopia to send its trade minister to
Djibouti.
Last month Djibouti accused Eritrea, which is also at loggerheads with
Ethiopia, of starting clashes on their border in which 12 Djiboutian
soldiers were killed and 55 wounded.
Eritrea denied its troops had crossed the border and rejected Western
criticism that it had started the fighting.
(For Reuters Africa coverage and to have your say on the top issue, visit
http://africa.reuters.com/) (Reporting by Tsegaye Tadesse, editing by Jack
Kimball and Tim Pearce)
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