By Barry Malone
ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) – An Ethiopian opposition leader said on Tuesday an anti-government plot had been invented as an excuse to arrest potential candidates ahead of national elections next year.
“Without third party verification I can’t believe there was a plot,” Bulcha Demeksa, leader of one of the largest opposition parties, the Oromo Federalist Democratic Movement, told Reuters.
“This government is just looking for an excuse to imprison potential politicians.”
Prime Minister Meles Zenawi’s government said last month a group led by an Ethiopian professor, Dr {www:Berhanu Nega}, had planned to use assassinations and bombings to provoke street protests and topple the government.
The Meles regime arrested 40 former and current army personnel and members of a disbanded opposition group from a “terror network” it said was formed by Berhanu Nega, an opposition leader now teaching economics in the United States.
[The detainees include an 80-year-old father of one an opposition party leader who recently went through a heart bypass surgery.]
The Bucknell University lecturer, who has publicly said he wants to overthrow the Ethiopian government, has called the accusations “baseless”.
“When Berhanu says he wants to overthrow the government, it is just words,” said Bulcha.
“He couldn’t have organised these people from the U.S.”
Former Ethiopian president Negaso Gidada, now an independent member of parliament, also told Reuters he doubted Berhanu’s involvement, but said the government was using the alleged plot to root out dissenters in its military.
“There is no democracy in Ethiopia,” added Negaso, citing recent legislation governing the activities of charities and the media that rights groups have condemned as repressive.
COURT PROCESS
The Ethiopian government’s head of information, Bereket Simon, told Reuters that evidence was being prepared and the accused would appear in court on May 11.
“Nobody has any right to prejudge the evidence and undermine the rule of law,” he said.
Opposition parties routinely accuse the government of harassment and say their candidates were intimidated during local elections in April of last year.
The government denies that.
Another opposition leader, Birtukan Mideksa, a former judge who heads the Unity for Democracy and Justice party, has been in solitary confinement since December.
She was jailed after a disputed 2005 poll, with Berhanu and other opposition leaders, when the government accused them of instigating riots in Addis Ababa in an attempt to take power.
About 200 opposition protesters were killed by soldiers and police in violence that followed.
Mideksa and Berhanu were released in a 2007 pardon, but she was re-arrested last year after the government said she had violated the terms of the pardon.
Meles was hailed as part of a new generation of African leaders in the 1990s, but rights groups have increasingly criticised the rebel-turned-leader for cracking down on opposition in sub-Saharan Africa’s second most populous nation.
The party that wins next June’s parliamentary election will pick the prime minister. Meles is expected to win comfortably.
Ethiopia’s political climate is closely watched by foreign investors showing increasing interest in agriculture, horticulture and real estate prospects.
The nation’s economic progress has been hampered of late by high inflation and a fall in foreign exchange inflows.
The country is one of the world’s poorest, ranked 170 out of 177 on the United Nations Human Development Index, and one of the largest recipients of international aid.
“Humanitarian aid should be continued, but development assistance should be conditional on a country being democratic,” said Bulcha. “How can you imprison and kill your people and have the world treat you like a democracy?” (Editing by Andrew Cawthorne)
By Chris Delia
There was a reason. The victim’s full name is Abiy Melesse Bezabih. He used to be the president of International Federation of Banking and Insurance Trade Unions (IFBITU).
Ato Abiy was a passionate champion of the Ethiopian people. He hated the corruption of Meles Zenawi’s dictatorship. They illegally ousted him from the labor union. Threw him in prison for over two years.
After he was released from prison, Ato Abiy continued to speak out against the dictatorship. They arrested him again, detained him for another six weeks. During that period they offered him a high level position in the government if he would side with them. He said, “No I cannot work for you, you are corrupt.” They exiled him, and told him if he ever spoke out against the government they would kill him.
His fear that the Ethiopian Government was well documented:
The Worker member of the United Kingdom joined in the comments made by the Worker members as well as those made by the Worker member of Rwanda. He stated that the Ethiopian Government’s interference with trade union activities had not only extended to control of the national centre of the Central Ethiopian Trade Union (CETU), but also to eight of its affiliates over the past few years. He noted that, since the beginning of 1999, the Government had constantly harassed the International Federation of Banking and Insurance Trade Unions (IFBITU) which was the one remaining affiliate still independent of government influence. In addition, trade unionists allied to IFBITU President Abiy Melesse had been intimidated, harassed and detained, with many having been forced into exile. In 1999, the Ethiopian authorities placed further pressure upon the leadership of the union, marginalizing it in four out of the five institutions where it was organized. Government security forces were deployed to prevent union leaders from entering their offices. Subsequently, illegal trade union elections were held and the new leadership took the union back into the CETU, thereby placing it under government control. He emphasized that IFBITU President Abiy Melesse Bezabih now feared for his life.
He came to America, where he became my friend. He dreamed of a time when Ethiopia would be lead by a real democracy and free from corruption and tribal hatred. He never stopped speaking out against the Ethiopian government.
Just before he died he told me that he believed that the Ethiopian Government was sending people to kill him. He said this to me:
“That’s all right, all they can do is kill me – they can’t change who I am or what I think.”
One day a man, he had not seen for over thirty years flew over a 1000 miles to Washington DC with a 9mm handgun and $3900 in his pocket and put a bullet in Abiy.
There is no mystery for me. Only a hope that you will carry on Abiy’s dream.
(The writer can be reached at [email protected])
Related:
* An Ethiopian emigre’s murder motive still unknown
Ethiopians in Australia have come together to form a support chapter of the Ethiopian People’s Patriotic Front (EPPF).
In a press release that was sent to Ethiopian Review today, the chapter stated that it was organized to provide the necessary support to the freedom fighters by mobilizing Ethiopians in Australia.
On top of providing material support, EPPF Australia will introduce the organization to Australian government officials and seek their support in the fight to stop the brutal oppression in Ethiopia by the tribalist Tigrean People’s Liberation Front’s (Woyanne) regime.
The Australia chapter can be contacted at: [email protected].
Click here to read the chapter’s press release.
Currently, on average about 20-30 Ethiopians join the EPPF daily. It’s capacity to accommodate such a large influx of new members is critically overstretched and the organization is in urgent need of assistance from Ethiopians around the world.
One way to support EPPF is to organize support chapters in your area and write to the EPPF International Committee at: [email protected].
Yonatan Getachew, 18, was arrested Tuesday, April 28. Charges against him include attempted first-degree murder and three counts of first-degree arson.
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WASHINGTON DC (WTOP) – The family of an Ethiopian teenager accused in a plot to murder a high school principal tells WTOP there is misinformation about the case.
In an email to WTOP, a woman identifying herself as a cousin of 18-year-old Yonata Getachew says the family still can’t believe what they are being told.
Meklit Bekele contends that on the day the plot was uncovered, Getachew was not stopped by school security at Springbrook High School in Maryland, as police said, but was sent home for being out of class.
The family says Getachew wasn’t the mastermind of the alleged plot, and that they are not familiar with 17-year-old Anthony Nelson Torrence.
Torrence and Getachew are accused of conspiring to kill the Springbrook High principal, three counts of arson, and making flammable devices.
The Getachew family insists the only flammable devices in their home were incense sticks used in cultural ceremonies.
Both teens were ordered held without bond.
Related:
* Ethiopian student in Maryland charged with murder plot
Our dear friend Prof. Adugnaw Worku has lost his beloved father late last month. The loss of a parent is one of the most devastating things that could happen to any one. But what makes Prof. Adugnaw’s grief more bitter is the fact that he could not be in person at home in Ethiopia to bid his father the last goodbye because of his strong stand against the Woyanne regime’s human rights atrocities. There are countless other Ethiopians who have faced the same situation — the distinguished Ethiopian artist Ato Tamagne Beyene, to mention one. He, too, had to say goodbye to his father from 15,000 miles away. Such are sacrifices paid by true sons of Ethiopia who stand up for the their people.
In memory of his father, Prof. Adugnaw has a written a 5-page captivating story entitled “The Patriotic Farmer.” It is a story that should be read to every Ethiopian child in every school through out Ethiopia, because it represents our grandfathers who kept a united, free Ethiopia. Click here to read [pdf, Amharic].
(Prof. Adugnaw can be reached at [email protected])
Listen below one of his poems:
[podcast]http://www.ethiopianreview.info/audio/Beqa_Embi_Ashaferegn_Professor_Adugnaw_Worku.mp3[/podcast]
MALAWI (Nyasa Times) — Management of refugees at Dzaleka camp in Dowa is turning into an issue of great concern to Malawi authorities.
Just under a month the country’s law enforcers have intercepted over 300 Ethiopians for successfully running away from the camp and attempting to illegally flee the country.
First were 114 Ethiopians who were arrested in Dedza district as they tried to flee the country for South Africa via Mozambique. They were arrested after a truck they were using got stuck in the mud.
And a week later, another contingent of 62 Ethiopians was caught on time at Mwanza border as it attempted to crossed into Mozambique.
The latest incident occurred last Thursday when again a group of 164 Ethiopian men successfully beat the Malawian security system by sneaking out of the country without the law enforcers’ notice.
The group was apprehended by the neighbouring Mozambican police in Tete Province while on their way to South Africa.
Mwanza Police Station Officer Joel Makomwa confirmed that Mozambique police arrested the 164 refugees, who appeared frail due to lack of food, and repatriated them to Malawi.
“They were intercepted by our counterparts in Mozambique and they immediately brought them here. We have already dispatched some of them to Dzaleka,” he said.
It is strongly believed that the group is the same that has had futile attempts to flee the country before.
Dzaleka camp has about 10,000 refugees who fled from Somali, Ethiopia, DRC, Burundi, and Rwanda due to wars and other disasters.
While most refugees from other countries have opted for raiding the country’s urban and rural areas in search of business ventures, the Ethiopians have appeared to be very stubborn in that every case of refugees fleeing the place for Mozambique and South Africa involves them.
