Press Releases

Dear General Director Erik Brandsma and Mattias Eriksson, Head of Market Development Department, We want to express our dissatisfaction with your decision to continue to remain engaged in the Green Resources tree plantation project in Kachung, Uganda. This project is still deeply flawed—socially, ecologically and economically—and must be questioned in nearly all respects. One of a number of critical issues which are being completely ignored by you, the Swedish Energy Agency, and Green Resources, is the fact that non-native trees are being planted in Kachung.

---FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE--- May 9, 2016 Media Contact: Frederic Mousseau, [email protected] Oakland, CA—The United States Department of State recently released its annual Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, including an in-depth account of the human rights situation in Ethiopia.

Dear Friend, The Panama Papers have helped expose how politicians, criminals and corporations around the world hide their cash and avoid taxes. In Papua New Guinea (PNG), foreign owned logging companies are profiteering, using some of the same tricks. PNG is now the world’s largest exporter of tropical timber, but the Oakland Institute recently revealed that most logging companies are not paying corporate tax. Meanwhile the government is slashing spending on vital services, including health and education, because it is faced with a financial crisis.

---FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE--- April 28, 2016 Contact: Anuradha Mittal, [email protected] Nine-Year Jail Term for Human Rights Defender Ethiopian Court Punishes Indigenous Leader Okello Akway Ochalla for Speaking Out "This is the most arduous time for my family. The court’s verdict against my father is a sentence against the people of Gambella, who have been denied basic human rights for decades. They have lived through a massacre and the theft of their land, rivers, and forests.

Tom Lantos Commission Briefing, April 19, 2016 2255 Rayburn House Office Building Statement by Anuradha Mittal, Executive Director of the Oakland Institute Congressman Ellison, members of the Tom Lantos Commission, thank you for this opportunity to provide an update on land-related human rights issues to you. Ethiopia — one of the poorest countries — is the world’s fifth largest recipient of development aid, and the largest in Africa. United States is the largest bilateral donor to Ethiopia. In 2014 Ethiopia received $665 million in US aid.

---FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE--- April 12, 2016 Contact: Anuradha Mittal, [email protected] Oakland, CA — World Bank accountability on forced resettlements resulting from its programs must be front and center at its spring meetings, taking place this week in Washington DC. Between 2004 and 2013, nearly 3.4 million people were physically or economically displaced due to World Bank programs in the developing world. In recent years, Bank-funded projects have resulted in forced evictions and human rights abuses in Uganda, Honduras, Cambodia, Peru, and Kenya, amongst other countries.

---FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE--- March 21, 2016 Media Contact: Anuradha Mittal, Oakland Institute, [email protected] Oakland, CA—Moral Bankruptcy: World Bank Reinvents Tainted Aid Program for Ethiopia, a new report released today by the Oakland Institute, exposes the shameful reinvention of one of the Bank’s most problematic programs in Ethiopia. The report also reveals that the US Treasury violated congressional law when voting in favor of this program.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Stop the Criminalization of Environmental and Human Rights Defenders! Free Ethiopian Political Prisoners! March 15, 2016 — One year after their arrest on March 15, 2015, three food, land, and human rights defenders continue to languish in an Ethiopian jail. After several court hearings, the prosecution has yet to present any evidence to support the spurious charge of “terrorism” under Ethiopia’s controversial counterterrorism law. A March 1 hearing was once again adjourned and rescheduled for March 15, due to the failure of witnesses to appear in court.

---FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE--- 9:00 am EST, February 16, 2016 Media Contact: Anuradha Mittal, Oakland Institute, [email protected] Oakland, CA— A new report released today, The Great Timber Heist: The Logging Industry in Papua New Guinea, exposes massive tax evasion and financial misreporting by foreign logging companies, allegedly resulting in nonpayment of hundreds of millions of dollars in taxes.Papua New Guinea (PNG) is home to the world’s third largest rainforest.

My father, Mr. Okello Akway Ochalla, is a Norwegian citizen who was kidnapped by the Ethiopian Security Forces and renditioned to Ethiopia in March 2014. Wrongly charged as a terrorist for defending indigenous rights, he has been languishing in jail for nearly two years. United States, a key ally and donor of Ethiopia, can use its partnership, as it has in the past, to free my father. PLEASE JOIN ME TODAY IN ASKING PRESIDENT OBAMA TO WIELD HIS INFLUENCE, AND HELP BRING MY FATHER HOME! You can read my letter to the President below.