A group of Ethiopian resistance fighters who claim to belong to Ethiopian Unity and Justice Movement have attacked a Woyanne police station and other targets in the northern Ethiopian town of Shoa Robit over the weekend.
The head of Shoa Robit Police told Ethiopian Review correspondent in Addis Ababa that the rebels attacked his station with hand grenades and that one of them has been detained. He was not willing to say if there was any causality from the Woyanne police.
After carrying out the attack, the rebels returned to their base in northern Wollo, according to their spokesman, Asrat Hailu.
Ato Asrat told Ethiopian Review that the Movement carried out similar missions in Merhabite, Fitra and other towns several months ago.
General Teferra Mammo, one of the 41 detainees accused of plotting coup against the tribal regime in Ethiopia
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ADDIS ABABA, ETHIOPIA — Ethiopian Review has learned that wives of the alleged coup suspects have not been spared.
Wzr. Nigisti Fasil, the wife of Colonel Amare Alebel, who is currently in hiding, is among the 41 detainees. The wife and 2-year-old daughter of Shaleqa (Major) Adugna Alemayehu were detained for two weeks.
The wife of Colonel Demissew Anteneh, who was brought from Harar, has been spared, but today for the sixth time she was forced to return to Harar without visiting her husband.
It is feared that some of the officers have been brutally tortured by the British-trained and -financed Woyanne secret police. Their lawyers are not allowed to visit them, and even today inside the court, the lawyers were unable to attend the hearing.
The 41 detainees are thrown in jail accused of being a part of assassination plots by Ginbot 7 Movement for Justice and Freedom.
The detainees include Ato Tsige Habtemariam, an 80-year-old father of Ginbot 7 Secretary General Andargachew Tsige.
The Addis Ababa-based Amharic language newspaper Awramba Times has a detailed report about the court appearance today of the ongoing of secret trial of suspected coup plotters in Ethiopia’s capital Addis Ababa.
After one month in detention, the suspects are still not allowed to visit their families, and except a few of them, their identities are kept secret.
Today, all of them arrived at the Arada district court in Addis Ababa in covered pickup trucks surrounded by heavily armed federal police troopers. There were over 250 family members outside the court, and none of them is allowed to see the detainees.
Several minutes later, the court ordered the detainees to come back to court in 2 weeks. [read more in Amharic, pdf]
ADDIS ABABA, ETHIOPIA — It’s been exactly a month now since at least 41 people, including an 80-year-old father of an opposition leader, have been arrested, suspected, allegedly of a coup attempt against the Meles regime.
Within days of their arrest the coup attempt was turned into assassination attempts instead. According to the minister of information Bereket Simon, Ethiopia’s political system is such that it is now immune to coup d’etats.
Since their arrest the suspects never saw their families. But what is now unraveling is that amongst the initial people arrested featured the wife and 2 year old daughter of one the defendants. They were in the central prison for two weeks.
Then the wife of a colonel wanted by the government is also in prison, unable to see her relatives.
Then we found out that people have been arrested from Bahir Dar, Lalibella and Harar, and that most of those arrested are the main bread winners in their families, leaving their loved ones behind without any income.
We saw today the police making every effort for the public not to see who’s coming out of the car at the court, and preventing the defendants to wave at their loved ones. Everyone was shocked by their behavior.
We were told that even before the hearing today, the police knew they were given two more weeks to gather evidence.
Apparently, the police said it was the end of their investigation. If so, why are they given another 2-week to gather evidence?
The blatant abuse of power by the authorities today proved that the whole story is a smoke screen and seems to develop as days go by, like a bad movie script.
All the families have been denied their constitutional right to visit their relatives. No one is willing to grant them, and the government pretends it doesn’t know? Even during the CUD trial this didn’t happen.
As for the shortage of electrical power, it looks more and more as if we are on the verge of a total blackout: all major factories are temporarily disconnected from the electric network, and we’re left in the dark, literally.
(Report by Ethiopian Review associate in Addis Ababa)
By Barry Malone
Gen. Asaminew Tsige is one of the 41 suspects who are in jail without charge in Ethiopia
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ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia (Reuters) – A group accused of plotting to overthrow the Ethiopian regime were remanded in custody on Monday again after spending more than one month in prison without any charges or visitation rights, relatives said.
Ethiopian Woyanne regime security forces are holding 41 former and current army personnel from a “terror network” the government says was formed by Berhanu Nega, an opposition leader now teaching economics at a university in the United States.
“They will be held for another two weeks,” a relative who did not want to be named told Reuters outside the court in Addis Ababa. “They were not even charged today.”
The 41 are accused of planning to assassinate senior government figures and blow up public utilities to provoke street protests and overthrow the government.
“The investigation was now complete,” one lawyer said.
Security forces killed about 200 protesters after parliamentary elections in 2005 when the opposition disputed the victory of Prime Minister Meles Zenawi’s government.
More than 100 relatives and supporters were gathered outside the courtroom. Ethiopian authorities have named only two of the prisoners despite calls from international rights groups that they name and charge all 41 detainees.
Neither family members nor lawyers have been able to visit the accused in prison, relatives said.
The Woyanne regime in Ethiopia has issued the following statement in response to President Isaias Afwerki’s interview. It must be a joke for Woyanne, the author of ‘Article 39’ (that gives ethnic groups the right to secede from Ethiopia), to accuse others of being anti-Ethiopia. By his actions, including his vehement opposition to ‘Article 39’ and supporting Ethiopian freedom fighters who stand for united Ethiopia, President Isaias has demonstrated that he is indeed a great friend of Ethiopia.
Read below the laughable statement by the Woyanne junta:
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President Issayas lectures the World, masquerading as defender of Ethiopia Unity
(MOFA 05/22/09):- President Issayas is taking the opportunity of Eritrea’s 16th anniversary of independence (May 24) to offer the region, Africa and the Middle East, his thoughts on world and regional problem, and at length. In a whole series of interviews, with regional media and those in the Middle East, and more widely, he has been telling the region, Africa, and indeed the world, how to behave and pointing out where they have all been going wrong. Every night for weeks, viewers of Eritrean TV have been able to hear their President’s thoughts at considerable length.
President Issayas finds little to welcome in the world or even in Eritrea. The words that most commonly appear are challenge, conspiracy, hostility, sacrifice, hard work and yet more hard work. The rewards are all far in the future; and Eritrea is always the target. “The United Nations, including the Security Council, has become an unjust and inequitable tool of a few nations” indulging in “illegal and unconstructive” positions, as well as baseless slanders against Eritrea over the supply of arms to Al-Shabaab and opponents of the Somali Government, although the Somali Prime Minister said only this week that the Somali Government had detailed evidence of arms flights arriving from Eritrea. President Issayas told Egyptian State TV this week that the problems in Somalia mainly emanate from the illegal actions of the UN Security Council itself. In a comprehensive attack on the Council, President Issayas claimed it had taken illegal and unconstructive positions, breaching the UN Charter and international law. This, he claimed, had caused the present vacuum in Somalia and become the source for piracy and other activities. He said a government “imposed” from outside had further aggravated the problem. In this context he told Kenyan TV that IGAD was a tool in the service of foreign agendas and was the source of the problem in Somalia. Eritrea, he said, expected nothing good from such an impotent organization and this was why it had suspended its membership.
The African Union came in for similar strictures as doing nothing more useful than “talking about a vacuum”. He referred to the behaviour of its leaders as corrupt and despicable, and in this connection he had much to say about democracy and the media in Africa. According to President Issayas, (talking to SABC TV at the weekend) Africa needs “genuine” democracy. Surprisingly, in view of South Africa’s recent Presidential election, he specifically noted that the South African experience proved that one cannot speak of real democracy when holding elections in which there is no equitable distribution of resources and where the majority of the population lived below the poverty line. President Issayas’ version of democracy, which ignores elections or political parties, does not equate with other peoples’ views. He is against such “meaningless exercises or manifestations of ostentatious behaviour”. In fact, democracy is an ideal and a set of institutions of practices. As an ideal it involves the concept that members of a group should have the determining control over rules and policies, and that members of the group should treat each other as equals. In a modern state this ideal is realized through a framework of citizens’ rights, institutions for representative and accountable government (in particular through a freely elected parliament), an active civil society and a number of mediatory elements of which the most obvious are political parties and an independent media. None of these are present in Eritrea and President Issayas specifically rejects most of these, even claiming, in defiance of Eritrea’s still unimplemented constitution that the people of Eritrea do not want either political parties or an independent media. It was in an interview with Al-Jazeera last year that the President actually put a time frame on elections. Eritrea would have, he said, to wait three or four decades before it held elections, and possibly longer. On the media, President Issayas claimed there was no free press any where in the world today. However the Eritrean people, he claimed, possessed media organs that served as forums for expressing their views and opinions as well as providing them with correct and objective information. Eritrea, of course, has had no independent media outlets since they were all closed down abruptly in 2001 and at least two dozen journalists detained and dozens more exiled.
Few international bodies or countries have escaped President Issayas’ attacks: “conspiracies and hostilities weaved in the name of regional, international and non-governmental organizations,…under the pretext of free press or [humanitarian activities] or…charity are some of the instruments of neo-colonialism masterminded by intelligence agencies.” The US has been one of the President’s main targets. He said it has a strategy of domination through creating problems and crises with the aim of strengthening US influence throughout the region. He attacked the CIA for encouraging and sponsoring human trafficking and encouraging Eritrean youth to flee their country. Hundreds of Eritreans cross into Ethiopia and Sudan every months to avoid conscription and repression. President Issayas told Asharq Alawat newspaper that lying was the culture of the CIA and the “baseless” anti-Eritrean defamatory campaign currently including allegations of Israeli and Iranian bases in Eritrea was no more than a continuation of this historic activity.
Uganda and Burundi are attacked for sending forces for AMISOM in Somalia. They are categorized as far from stable countries, experiencing civil unrest as well as internal opposition. These governments should, said President Issayas, concentrate on their own problems rather than meddle elsewhere. Indeed, the only viable solution for Somalia, said President Issayas was for outsiders to stop meddling in its affairs. He did not include Eritrea in this however. Eritrea’s support for the Somali people was, he said, a moral and legal obligation; and peace and stability could only be achieved by creating a conducive ground for the Somali people to resolve the issue themselves. Kenya was held responsible for the disappearance of three Eritrean journalists in Mogadishu and President Issayas added, ominously, that Eritrea would never overlook the issue. Last weekend it was the turn of long-time ally, the Sudanese Peoples Liberation Movement. President Issayas, claiming he had the right to criticize the organization, attacked it for failing to fulfill its commitments to the people of Sudan, for corruption and for failing to be definitive on unity or separation.
Perhaps, most bizarrely, in one four hour interview with what claims to be an Ethiopian website though undoubtedly in the pay of the Eritrean Government, President Issayas even tried to portray himself as a defender of Ethiopian unity. The interview indeed appears designed to allow President Issayas to appear in this guise. The truth of the matter is that no other person has worked so tirelessly for the demise of Ethiopia as a country. This is by no means an exaggeration. President Issayas has never been supportive of Ethiopian unity as his current efforts at destabilization make all too clear. Ethiopian officials, of course, are privy to what President Issayas was telling many African leaders during the war between Eritrea and Ethiopia (1998-2000): there is no such thing as Ethiopia and what there is, is no more than a shadow of a country – a country that cannot be taken seriously as a state. In terms of historical background, we would remember what President Issayas told an American, Paul Henze, on 11th March 1991, before he entered Asmara:
“The only reason that there is an Ethiopia is that the US needed it for the Cold War, and recreated it, otherwise it would have disappeared at the end of World War II.”
