Press Statement
The Coalition for Unity & Democracy (Kinijit)
June 12, 2007
June 11, 2007 once again marks another episode, in a series of excessive lawlessness and brutality that had been the order of the day in Ethiopia, ever since the domination of the nation by the illegitimate regime of Meles Zenawi.
It is on this day that the judiciary, known for being infested by the puppets of the brutal regime, handed down its guilty verdict on the democratically elected and popularly cherished heroes of the nation. These heroes of the Ethiopian democratic movement have genuinely and tirelessly charted a course that would have made repression and lawlessness on the one hand, disease, hunger, and poverty on the other, a thing of the past in our beloved Motherland.
The infamous verdict is intended to dehumanize the Ethiopian people, and crush the spirit of our heroes by ultimately sentencing them to life imprisonment or death. It is also designed to deal a crushing defeat to the democratic aspiration of the Ethiopian people and by extension respect for human rights and the rule of law.
A glimpse at today’s court drama clearly manifests that there were too many flaws in the handing down of the verdict which, as a matter of fact, has always been part and parcel of the administration of justice of the regime in general. Obviously, the ‘defendants’ had been deliberately denied access to relevant pieces of evidence and information to adequately pursue their defense. Further more, on the pretext of a ten minutes recess, which apparently lasted two hours, it is evident that the so called judges were actually receiving their final instructions by top officials of the executive branch, which is contrary to all norms of the practice of legal principles.
Today’s ill advised verdict is unprecedented in its cruelty in the long history of our nation, because it is a direct affront to the patriotism, dignity, freedom and identity of the Ethiopian people. It is a slick shot targeted against the Ethiopian people for the sole purpose of humiliating and suppressing our spirit of freedom which we have long espoused. Hence, this verdict has to be vehemently condemned by Ethiopians at home and abroad, and by all peace loving people of the world.
It is crystal clear that the days of the brutal regime of Meles Zenawi and his hunch men are numbered. The frustration and irresponsible acts of the court is a demonstration of their desperation. We, Ethiopians, are now, more than ever, united with the common purpose to say enough is enough. For the well being of our age old pride, the survival of our beloved nation, and for the good of the international community, the regime of Meles Zenawi has to be reminded, in no uncertain terms, that he can not keep on plundering the resources of the country and hoodwinking the international community with his duplicitous politics.
Finally, we, members and supporters of the Coalition for Unity and Democracy Party /CUDP/ would like to emphasize to the international community that the vision and spirit that has sustained and energized our heroic leaders would also further ignite our patriotism. Their moral strength, while they languish in the treacherous acts of brutality would only fuel our determination and sacrifices; so that we can move forward with renewed vigor to fulfill the historic tasks that the struggle for democracy requires.
A human rights group says it’s deeply concerned about the nearly 40 people convicted in Ethiopia Monday on charges stemming from political violence two years ago. Among those convicted were four editors and three publishers of newspapers that have since closed down.
In 2005, protests followed parliamentary elections, which critics say were rigged. Nearly 200 people died in the violence.
Tumusiime Kabwende Deo is a spokesman for the East and Horn of Africa Human Rights Defenders Network. From Kampala, Uganda, he spoke to VOA English to Africa Service reporter Joe De Capua about the convictions.
“Our reaction is actually that the government of Ethiopia is completely wrong in acting that way. And our major concern is about the human rights defenders, whom our organization actually works to protect. We think the government is not treating them fairly. And according to information we have received from some of our contacts it appears that the government of Ethiopia ought to take full responsibility of the violence that occurred in 2005, leading to the arrests of the persons we have mentioned,” he says.The Ethiopian government has denied the convictions are an attempt to stifle political dissent. Deo says, “I would not comment on the political side. Our interest for the organization rotates around human rights defenders and the journalists.” Asked whether the political and human rights situations are intertwined, Deo says, “They might be intertwined, but then it’s very hard to gauge at what extent the government action is in the interest of national security. This is a kind of scenario that is being used by various governments in Africa just to crackdown on innocent human rights defenders. I mean what yardstick do you use to gauge that such and such an action is in the interest of national security or not.”
Deo says his sources tell him that those convicted could receive long prison sentences and in some cases maybe even the death penalty.
A federal high court verdict finding four journalists and three press groups guilty yesterday of trying to “overthrow constitutional rule” was condemned today by Reporters Without Borders as a serious retrograde development. Two of the four journalists face a possible death sentence or life imprisonment. They are part of a group of 38 opposition members who were convicted yesterday. Most had been in prison ever since a wave of arrests in November 2005.
The press freedom organisation also condemns the re-arrest of one of the four, Dawit Fassil, the deputy editor of the now-defunct weekly Satenaw, who had been released on bail in April after being held for 17 months.
“Isn’t the Ethiopian government tired of harassing the opposition and press?” Reporters Without Borders asked. “More than 18 months after the November 2005 round-ups, it continues to claim to be dispensing justice, when in fact it has become a caricature of revanchism and dysfunctional democracy. This is disappointing, and very disturbing for those who saw the acquittals in April as a sign that the government was ready to compromise.”
The organisation added: “The United States, which has a privileged relationship with Ethiopia, must make Prime Minister Meles Zenawi understand that these interminable proceedings have gone on long enough. This affair is becoming more and more dangerous for the country’s stability. It is time to find an honourable solution.”
The refusal of the four journalists and 34 other defendants – all members of the opposition Coalition for Unity and Democracy (CUD) – to present a defence was interpreted by the high court as a confession of guilt.
Among the various verdicts handed down yesterday, the court found Abay editor Mesfin Tesfaye, Ethiop editor Andualem Ayele and Asqual editor Wonakseged Zeleke guilty of “conspiring to overthrow constitutional rule” and “inciting revolt.” Mesfin and Andualem face the possibility of the death penalty or life imprisonment. Wonakseged could get 10 years.
The newly rearrested Dawit faces a possible three-year sentence for publishing inaccurate information. Sentences are due to be announced on 8 July. The three press groups that were convicted – Serkalem, Sisay and Fassil – face large fines or court-ordered dissolution.
Two other journalists – Addis Zena editor Wosonseged Gebrekidan and Hadar editor Dawit Kebede – did agree to present a defence. Hearings for this purpose are due to begin on 18 June.
An Ethiopian judge adjourned Tuesday a trial launched by prosecutors seeking a death sentence for Mengistu Haile Marian, an exiled former dictator already sentenced to life in prison.
Judge Desta Gebru adjourned the trial till July 3 after defence lawyers filed their own appeal calling for Mengistu’s life sentence to be lifted and lesser terms for the ex-dictator’s aides.
Hearings for the prosecutors’ appeal, filed last week, were scheduled to begin Tuesday but have been adjourned until next month so both appeals can be considered at once, the judge said.
“We appeal not just against the prosecutor’s appeal, but also against the life-imprisonment sentence handed out earlier. We ask the court to review both cases at the same time,” said Girmasellasie Araya, a defence lawyer.
An Ethiopian court sentenced the former dictator in absentia last January to life in prison for genocide and other crimes. Mengistu has lived in exile in Zimbabwe since being overthrown in 1991.
The prosecution had called for Mengistu to be executed after he was convicted at the end of the marathon 12-year trial that ended on December 12.
But Justice Nur Mohammed said at the time that the court believed other punishments were sufficient.
The sentence followed the Ethiopian Federal High Court’s conviction of Mengistu and 11 of his top aides on 211 counts of genocide, homicide, illegal imprisonment and illegal property seizure.
The trial related to atrocities committed during the 1977-78 “Red Terror” period when tens of thousands of people were killed or disappeared in Mengistu’s bid to turn Ethiopia into a Soviet-style workers’ state.
Zimbabwe has always ruled out the possibility of extraditing the 69-year-old former Ethiopian leader, who ruled until 1991.
Shack dwellers in Addis Ababa are being forced out of their homes as massive development takes place in the Ethiopian capital, writes the BBC?s Amber Henshaw as part of a special report on cities in the Focus on Africa magazine.
House partially demolished
Poor residents say development is taking place at their expense
Twenty-four-year-old Osman Redwan woke up one morning to find his shack in Ethiopia’s capital, Addis Ababa, sliced in two.
City planners had drawn a line through his neighbourhood to make way for a huge road expansion programme.
And stunned onlookers watched as diggers came in to demolish everything along that line – one person’s front porch, another’s back garden, the front third of a traditional wooden house, half a shop.
The work was quick and clinical. Demolition teams stripped away plaster and partitions, leaving a series of bizarre cross sections behind them.
Walls were torn down, exposing bedrooms and pink-tiled bathrooms to the outside world, while families retreated into what was left of their houses.
“No-one is against development,” Redwan told the Addis Ababa business newspaper Fortune.
“But you get horrified when you realise that you end up losing your business and ruining your life. This is not war. Development should not be at the sacrifice of individuals.”
Relentless transformation
Similar developments are under way across Addis Ababa, and it is not just roads.
Brand new hotels, bars and restaurants are popping up all over the city. Much of it is powered by diaspora Ethiopians, returning from their havens in the United States and Western Europe with piles of hard-earned hard currency to invest.
Another driving factor is preparations for Ethiopia’s coming millennium celebrations.
Ethiopians are still living in 1999 thanks to their unique and ancient dating system – a variation on the archaic Julian calendar that started disappearing from the Western world in the 16th century.
Board counting down days to Ethiopian Millennium
Ethiopia’s Millennium has inspired the massive push for growth
Ethiopia will not enter the 21st century until later this year – 12 September 2007, if you use the more mainstream Gregorian calendar.
There is no doubting the ambition to develop Addis Ababa. But what it less clear is exactly who is in the driving seat, directing the diggers in their relentless transformation of the city.
Politically, Addis Ababa has been floundering since controversial national elections in May 2005.
Much of the construction seems to be based on plans laid out before the election by the city’s last mayor, Arkebe Oqubay, who was aligned to the ruling Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) coalition.
Oqubay was voted out of office by a huge majority, but the man chosen to replace him had little chance to make his mark on the development blueprints.
About six months after the poll, Mayor-elect Berhanu Nega was one of scores of politicians from the opposition Coalition of Unity and Democracy (CUD) to be arrested and charged with a string of offences, including attempting to overthrow the government.
Critics
Following the arrests, the government appointed an interim administration, with a caretaker mayor, Berhane Deressa.
But the uncertainty since the election has had a knock-on effect across the city. Local government officials have been going to incredible lengths to avoid making decisions, say aid workers working on development projects.
Woman walks past demolished house
We have economic development that does not benefit most people. That could be very explosive
Mehane Tadesse, Center for Policy Research and Dialogue
“Suddenly all the kebele [local council] officials we had worked hard to build relations with disappeared,” says a development worker, who asked not to be named. “We were back to square one trying to build new relations.”
Others have raised fears about the impact of all the development on the city’s poorest residents.
Again, few critics are prepared to be named, but off the record they point to the high rents being charged in the new residential tower blocks springing up around the capital.
Deposits of 350 birr (about US$40) and monthly rents of 150 Birr (US$17) are common – a pittance by Western standards, but way above the going rate for an old-fashioned city-centre shack.
“We have economic development that does not benefit most people. That could be very explosive,” says Mehane Tadesse from the Center for Policy Research and Dialogue, a Horn of Africa think tank.
“And the growth is not sustainable. The whole agenda suffers from short-termism. Political transition is the key and that is just not happening.”
Moving out
For now, at least, there is little sign of the diggers and demolition crews running out of steam.
A huge plot of shanty towns and shacks opposite the United Nations’ main compound in Addis Ababa has been cleared to make way for the foundations of a cluster of tower blocks, alongside a new five-star hotel and a new headquarters for the UN’s children’s agency, Unicef.
And in Osman Redwan’s neighbourhood, Kazanchis, the road crews are still busily carving out their line.
After the diggers moved in, he moved all his possessions back into what is left of his now one-room shack – shared with his nine siblings and bedridden father.
In a new sign of trouble for Somalia’s transitional government, elders of the Hawiye clan, which dominates in the capital, are threatening to boycott a national reconciliation conference, scheduled to begin in five days. Meanwhile, the chairman of the reconciliation committee tells VOA there is a chance the peace talks may be delayed again for the third time. Correspondent Alisha Ryu reports from Mogadishu.
Hawiye clan soldiers fire towards Ethiopian troops in Mogadishu, 19 Apr 2007
A prominent Hawiye elder in Mogadishu, Haji Abdi Imam Omar, tells VOA that the clan is united in opposing the reconciliation conference, which he says is promising to be little more than a get-together of pro-government delegates.
Haji Omar is the chairman of the newly-formed Hawiye Elders Congress, a political body established to unite fractious sub-clans and to function as the voice of the Hawiye people.
The Hawiye leader says the interim government has failed to engage clan elders in any meaningful talks before the conference and has not responded to the list of demands they submitted to the reconciliation committee in early May.
Haji Omar says that is why the Hawiye believe the June 16 talks will not be held in the interest of all of the Somali people.
The participation of the Hawiye clan is crucial to the talks, not only because it is one of the largest clans in Somalia, but because the clan dominates in the capital, where the government is struggling to assert full control.
A violent insurgency erupted in February, a month after the Ethiopian-backed interim government defeated Somalia’s Islamist movement and took power in Mogadishu.
Ensuing battles between insurgents and Ethiopian troops have killed nearly 2,000 people and have caused hundreds of thousands of others to flee the city.
The insurgents are believed to be a mix of Islamist fighters and Hawiye militiamen. Both groups are angry over the government’s close relationship with Ethiopia and the presence of Ethiopian troops in Somalia.
Many Hawiye clan members also believe that President Abdullahi Yusuf’s powerful rival clan, the Darod, are using the presidential office to lay down the groundwork to weaken and marginalize the Hawiye.
They criticize Hawiye members in the interim government, such as Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi and the chairman of the national reconciliation committee, Ali Mahdi Mohamed, as doing little to protect Hawiye interests.
Somali Prime Minister, Ali Mohamed Gedi (center), 17 May 2007
Prime Minister Gedi vigorously denies accusations the government is being deliberately vague about the make-up and the agenda of the conference and hand-picking delegates.
“Friends and brothers and sisters are not in place,” he said. “This [conference] is based according to the transitional federal charter. The selection mandate has been given to the elders and traditional leaders of each and every clan. So, this is the way and nobody can change it, even myself, even the president, even the parliament. No.”
Western donor nations, particularly the European Union, have made financial support of the reconciliation conference conditional on the government’s willingness to hold inclusive, transparent talks.
On Sunday, committee chairman, Ali Mahdi Mohamed, told VOA that donors have only released a fraction of the money needed. He says this may cause the start of the conference to be delayed one to two weeks.
The conference has been postponed twice, in April and in May, because of insecurity in the capital.
