The Addis Ababa airport I used to know was shabby and neglected, an overgrown shack of wood, concrete and tin. It smelled of incense mingled with the dank, sweet odor of sewage. But the old airport had been torn down since my last visit; in its place was a sparkling, high-ceilinged structure of metal and glass into which light poured from every direction.
Now, as I rode into the city, traffic stopped for a herd of goats and beggars were sleeping on the traffic islands that divided the road. But people were also bustling around with cell phones stuck to their ears, and brightly lit Internet cafes were filled with young people. Things were changing for the better, it seemed when I arrived last month. There was no reason to suspect that Ethiopia was poised to plunge headlong into darkness — that within a week, dozens of street protesters would be dead, and tens of thousands of young people arrested.
Like many in the West who follow Africa, I was prepared to think well of Meles Zenawi, Ethiopia’s engaging prime minister. After all, in 1991 he had toppled Mengistu Haile Mariam, the communist dictator. Under Mengistu, fear used to be palpable. Hulking members of the secret police patrolled the streets at night, their weapons hidden under long dark coats. I had been in Addis Ababa 14 years ago when Zenawi’s Tigrean People’s Liberation Front had freed the city, ending 15 years of civil war. The young TPLF fighters, dressed in frayed, unmatched combat fatigues, had seemed incorruptible as they moved through the city, stealing nothing, as though still in the countryside where they had lived for years.
Zenawi, an avowed Marxist Leninist during the civil war, adroitly changed ideologies after taking charge of Ethiopia in May 1991. With the Soviet Union collapsing, Zenawi vowed to bring democracy and Western-style economic growth to Ethiopia. Since then, Ethiopian democracy had been far from perfect — Zenawi’s party had won suspiciously resounding victories in two consecutive elections and was suspected of fudging poll results in parliamentary races in May that were initially seen as fairer. But I was ready to give him the benefit of the doubt. Hadn’t a free press been allowed to flourish in the capital? Hadn’t I seen, in visits over the past decade, that people were no longer afraid to speak their minds? And didn’t the cell phones and Internet cafes indicate that part of the population was emerging from poverty?
All too often encouraging signs of change have proven false in African nations, but Zenawi’s mastery of the language and symbols of liberal democracy had raised hopes that Ethiopia would be an exception. Figures such as British Prime Minister Tony Blair and the Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz praised Zenawi as a wise leader. Contributions from Western donor countries covered almost a third of Ethiopia’s annual budget. And Jimmy Carter, whose Carter Center had sent hundreds of observers, declared the May campaign this year basically free and fair. Yet democracy, like beauty, is sometimes only skin-deep — and elections are of only cosmetic value when the army, the media and the justice system are all controlled by the ruling party.
As I drove into Addis Ababa, the police were stopping buses, seemingly at random, and searching all male passengers. This was the first sign, for me, that something was amiss. The next day I sat in the attic of a small restaurant, with 20 young men, most well educated yet unemployed. They were chewing mildly narcotic leaves of qat and talking politics, green paste dripping occasionally from the corners of their mouths. All of them had been stopped and searched over the previous 24 hours, and all were angry.
The May 15 elections had been rigged, they told me. When the government realized it was losing in the rural areas, its traditional power base, as well as in the cities, it had stolen ballots and stuffed boxes in the swaths of countryside where no observers were posted. After the elections, Zenawi imposed a state of emergency, outlawing public protest and lambasting the opposition over state-controlled television and radio. In June, students at Addis Ababa University who had shouted protest slogans had been arrested. When a high school girl lay down in front of the trucks that came to take the students away, she was shot by a sniper. Then all hell broke loose and at least 35 people were shot dead when security forces opened fire.
Mesfin Wolde-Mariam, a leading intellectual and one of the architects of the main opposition party, the Coalition for Unity and Democracy (CUD), had championed human rights and been jailed by both Haile Selassie’s and Mengistu’s regimes. Now, at age 75, he was at odds with a new regime.
White-haired, frail and coughing as he chain-smoked Marlboros, Mesfin expressed both hope and outrage when I interviewed him in his cluttered apartment. “The opposition is engaged in peaceful political struggle, but the government is using brute force. Yesterday, the police entered the CUD offices, beat people and carted them off. Hundreds are in prison.” Mesfin lit another cigarette. “For the Ethiopian people, the masses, there is a new awakening. They once believed that God gave you rulers. Now they are beginning to realize that they have sovereign rights.”
The CUD had called for a general strike to be held Nov. 4, but on Nov. 1, the day after I spoke to Mesfin, violence began. Several hundred high school students joined by children in the sprawling Merkato market confronted police and red-bereted army special forces, blocking streets, burning tires and throwing stones. Across the city, stores closed their metal gates; the minivan taxis disappeared, city buses were pelted with stones. By nightfall, eight people were dead, including two police officers, and most opposition leaders — including Mesfin — had been arrested and charged with treason, an offense punishable by death. Independent newspapers had been closed, and journalists were in prison or hiding.
There had been warning signs about the repressive nature of the Zenawi regime 14 years ago. Ethiopia has some 70 ethnic groups, including the Amhara, the Oromo and the Tigreans. The Amhara tribe, whose members included Haile Selassie and Mengistu, had ruled Ethiopia for a hundred years, conquering lands and creating a nation out of disparate parts. The Oromo, the largest ethnic group, were largely disempowered. The Tigreans, though fewer in number, were the Amhara’s historic rivals.
The day after the Tigrean fighters ousted Mengistu, Amhara demonstrators carrying long green branches had protested Zenawi’s plan to allow Eritrea, Ethiopia’s northernmost region, which had been fighting for independence for 30 years, to secede. “Ethiopia must stay united,” the agitated demonstrators had cried. I was standing with Tigrean soldiers, who were still dressed in their ragtag rebel clothes, when they singled out one demonstrator and cornered him in front of the exterior brick wall of a church. He was a middle-aged man with a paunch and I watched him raise his hands in a gesture of submission before the soldiers shot him at close range — once, twice, until he collapsed.
My natural sympathy was not with the protesters. I saw them as Amhara supremacists who did not appreciate that the Tigreans had liberated them from a brutal dictatorship. Because of this, perhaps, I didn’t judge the incident harshly enough.
I thought of that shooting again as accounts of police and army excesses started pouring in last month. A French journalist I met on the street had seen army troops firing at the backs of retreating demonstrators. A young woman ran up to us breathlessly and said she had seen soldiers burst into a house a block away and start shooting. Soldiers roared through the now empty streets by the truckload. By afternoon, most of the shooting had subsided. But not all of it.
In the morning, in one of the thousands of dirt alleyways that form grids between Addis Ababa’s broad avenues, I was led into a mud-brick home, where mourners wept and danced in a frenzy of sorrow. A 17-year-old named Tsegahun had been standing with friends in the alleyway at dusk the day before when soldiers arrived. One of the friends said, “They called him over, told him to kneel down, and shot him twice in the midsection.”
After that, hundreds of young men had taken refuge in a nearby river gorge to escape soldiers who had come knocking on doors at midnight. I heard the same story in neighborhood after neighborhood. Arrests continued every night for a week, until thousands were taken, human rights groups said. Many were hauled 220 miles away, to the malaria-infected lowlands near Sudan.
After a week, Addis Ababa returned to a semblance of normalcy. Shops reopened — though only after the government had begun to revoke the licenses of businesses that remained closed. Parents wandered from police station to police station, trying to get information about their arrested children. The opposition leaders, Mesfin among them, were shown on TV shuffling, handcuffed and bent, toward a courtroom.
Suspicion simmered, as though the Mengistu era had returned. People in cafes shot furtive glances at neighboring tables.
“We feel betrayed by democracy,” said a journalist who said he has been in hiding since the Nov. 1 crackdown. “It’s as if the government encouraged us to speak our minds so that it would know who to grab when the time came.”
Yet many Ethiopians believe that the Western democracies could still help. The driver who took me to the airport, a friend from previous visits, had carefully avoided talking politics during my trip.
As we approached the terminal, he finally had his say. “The donor countries can twist Meles’s arm and make him compromise — release the prisoners, allow the newspapers to reopen,” he said about Zenawi. “That’s if they care about democracy as much as they say.”
Democracy had been the focus of the people’s disappointment — yet that disappointment had not killed their desire for it. Zenawi, undoubtedly, already knows this.
__________
Author’s e-mail:[email protected] Micha Odenheimer is a writer and rabbi based in Jerusalem.
A leader handpicked by Tony Blair to champion Africa has smashed his opponents with the biggest crackdown in the continent’s recent history, jailing 40,000 people including boys of 15.
Meles Zenawi, the Ethiopian prime minister and a member of Britain’s Commission for Africa, has launched a systematic onslaught against every possible adversary.
The entire leadership of Ethiopia’s main opposition party has been locked up. Mr Meles has closed five newspapers and jailed their editors, while police have killed about 80 demonstrators.
Paramilitary units have killed people arbitrarily and thousands have been detained at random.
This operation had thwarted “an insurrection”, Mr Meles said.
A crackdown on this scale has not been seen in Africa for 20 years and the repression exceeds anything by President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe for the past decade at least.
Apartheid-era South Africa’s onslaught against the black townships in the 1980s provides the only recent comparison. Ethiopia sank into crisis after a general election in May. The opposition said the polls were rigged and called mass protests in the capital, Addis Ababa.
Demonstrators gathered in huge numbers in June and again last month. On both occasions the security forces opened fire with live rounds. A handful of protesters were armed and shot at police. But most were unarmed and western diplomats dismissed Mr Meles’s claim that a violent “revolution” was unfolding.
Instead, repression has followed November’s demonstrations. Twenty-three leaders of the opposition Coalition for Unity and Democracy (CUD), including Hailu Shawal, its chairman, will be formally charged with treason today. The CUD holds all 23 of Addis Ababa’s parliamentary seats and its most junior figures have not been spared.
Police came for Teshome Legesse, a CUD city councillor, as he was having lunch with his family on Nov 1.
When they beat him with rifle butts, his wife, Etenesh Yimmam, 46, became hysterical. They beat her with sticks, then one of the police shot her twice.
The man who killed Mrs Etenesh received a shouted order from another officer: “Just do it.” At that moment, he fired again, apparently aiming at the woman’s son, bent over her body. He missed and wounded one of the family’s neighbours. Then two officers fired in the air, dispersing the crowd, and the police left in a pick-up, taking the dead woman’s husband.
Arrests were taking place across Addis Ababa. The city’s jail overflowed and prisoners were held in its compound. As that became crammed, detainees were held in the National Exhibition Centre. Even that overflowed, so government offices were used as temporary prisons.
Detainees were beaten, stripped of their shoes then driven to an old military camp at Dedesa, 250 miles west of Addis Ababa. There they survive in disused barracks on daily rations of four slices of bread.
Western diplomats have reports of executions at Dedesa and of a body being hung on the camp’s gates. The best estimate for the total detained is 40,000.
Most were held for a few weeks. But Mr Meles said on Tuesday that 3,000 were still in detention.
Last year Britain gave Ethiopia £44 million of aid, of which £30 million went directly into the government’s coffers. This year £50 million has been withheld.
Mesfin Abebe, 15, an orphan who begs on the streets, was arrested, beaten and held at Dedesa for 15 days. “They did not choose who they were arresting,” he said. “They just grabbed boys from the street.”
A leader handpicked by Tony Blair to champion Africa has smashed his opponents with the biggest crackdown in the continent’s recent history, jailing 40,000 people including boys of 15.
Meles Zenawi, the Ethiopian prime minister and a member of Britain’s Commission for Africa, has launched a systematic onslaught against every possible adversary.
The entire leadership of Ethiopia’s main opposition party has been locked up. Mr Meles has closed five newspapers and jailed their editors, while police have killed about 80 demonstrators.
Paramilitary units have killed people arbitrarily and thousands have been detained at random.
This operation had thwarted “an insurrection”, Mr Meles said.
A crackdown on this scale has not been seen in Africa for 20 years and the repression exceeds anything by President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe for the past decade at least.
Apartheid-era South Africa’s onslaught against the black townships in the 1980s provides the only recent comparison. Ethiopia sank into crisis after a general election in May. The opposition said the polls were rigged and called mass protests in the capital, Addis Ababa.
Demonstrators gathered in huge numbers in June and again last month. On both occasions the security forces opened fire with live rounds. A handful of protesters were armed and shot at police. But most were unarmed and western diplomats dismissed Mr Meles’s claim that a violent “revolution” was unfolding.
Instead, repression has followed November’s demonstrations. Twenty-three leaders of the opposition Coalition for Unity and Democracy (CUD), including Hailu Shawal, its chairman, will be formally charged with treason today. The CUD holds all 23 of Addis Ababa’s parliamentary seats and its most junior figures have not been spared.
Police came for Teshome Legesse, a CUD city councillor, as he was having lunch with his family on Nov 1.
When they beat him with rifle butts, his wife, Etenesh Yimmam, 46, became hysterical. They beat her with sticks, then one of the police shot her twice.
The man who killed Mrs Etenesh received a shouted order from another officer: “Just do it.” At that moment, he fired again, apparently aiming at the woman’s son, bent over her body. He missed and wounded one of the family’s neighbours. Then two officers fired in the air, dispersing the crowd, and the police left in a pick-up, taking the dead woman’s husband.
Arrests were taking place across Addis Ababa. The city’s jail overflowed and prisoners were held in its compound. As that became crammed, detainees were held in the National Exhibition Centre. Even that overflowed, so government offices were used as temporary prisons.
Detainees were beaten, stripped of their shoes then driven to an old military camp at Dedesa, 250 miles west of Addis Ababa. There they survive in disused barracks on daily rations of four slices of bread.
Western diplomats have reports of executions at Dedesa and of a body being hung on the camp’s gates. The best estimate for the total detained is 40,000.
Most were held for a few weeks. But Mr Meles said on Tuesday that 3,000 were still in detention.
Last year Britain gave Ethiopia £44 million of aid, of which £30 million went directly into the government’s coffers. This year £50 million has been withheld.
Mesfin Abebe, 15, an orphan who begs on the streets, was arrested, beaten and held at Dedesa for 15 days. “They did not choose who they were arresting,” he said. “They just grabbed boys from the street.”
Members of the European Parliament voted in favour of three resolutions on the human rights situation in Tibet and Hong Kong, human rights issue in Russia and the new NGO legislation and the situation in Ethiopia and the new border conflict.
MEPs condemn violence in Ethiopia
In adopting a joint resolution on the situation in Ethiopia with 93 votes in favour, 0 against and 1 abstention, MEPs condemn the violence, the use of disproportionate means of repression by the armed forces and the mass arrests. The House calls on the Ethiopian Government to immediately and unconditionally release all political prisoners and journalists and fulfil its obligations with respect to human rights, democratic principles and the rule of law. Parliament calls on the Ethiopian Government to disclose the total number of persons detained throughout the country, to allow visits by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and to allow all the detainees access to their families, legal counsel and any medical care that their health situation may require. MEPs call on the Ethiopian Government to fully respect the fundamental principles of press freedom, put an end to the state media monopoly and allow the independent press to function by returning confiscated property. The House calls for the immediate establishment of an independent international commission of inquiry, optimally under UN responsibility, to investigate the human rights abuses and to identify and bring to justice those responsible. MEPs consider that, despite the political dialogue between the EU and the Ethiopian Government under Article 8 of the Cotonou Agreement, the latter has failed to fulfil its obligations with respect to human rights, democratic principles and the rule of law. The House calls on the Commission and the Council to take a coordinated stance in line with Article 96 of the Cotonou Agreement. Parliament also calls on the Commission and the Council to consider targeted sanctions against members of the Ethiopian Government if the current human rights situation is not significantly improved. The House calls on the Council and the Commission to channel humanitarian aid for the population of Ethiopia primarily through NGOs and UN specialised agencies in order to provide direct assistance to the population. Parliament also calls for a resumption of the process of reform and improvement of democratic institutions, which includes a serious and international examination of the results of the parliamentary elections held in May. Finally, MEPs call on the African Union, whose head office is in Ethiopia, to take a clear stance, proving its determination to bring democracy forward in Africa, especially in Ethiopia. Situation in Tibet and Hong Kong In adopting a joint resolution on the situation in Tibet and in Hong Kong, MEPs demand that the Government of the PRC clarify the circumstances of the death of the young Tibetan Monk Ngawang Jangchub during the ‘patriotic education’ session in October 2005. The House is deeply concerned about the state of health of the five monks arrested on 23 November 2005 at Drepung Monastery. Parliament urges the Government of the PRC to immediately release them from their imprisonment in the Public Security Bureau Detention Centres. MEPs call on the Government of the PRC to provide all the information available concerning their detention conditions with reference, in particular, to the allegations of torture and the possible arrest of more people. The House urges the Government to suspend the blockade of Drepung Monastery in Lhasa immediately. MEPs also urge the Chinese authorities to cease the ‘patriotic education’ campaign, to react in a proportionate manner to non-violent protests and not to undermine human rights by the use of physical violence against them. MEPs calls once more on the Government of the PRC to improve the conditions of imprisonment in its jails, to cease and abolish torture of detainees, as well as stopping the continued violation of the human rights of the Tibetan people and other minorities and ensuring that it respects international standards of human rights and humanitarian law. The House calls on the Council and the Member States to maintain the EU embargo on trade in arms with the PRC and not to weaken the existing limitation of such arms sales. MEPs call on the Government of the PRC to continue the dialogue with the representatives of the Dalai Lama. Finally, the House urges the Conference of Presidents to invite his Holiness the Dalai Lama to address the European Parliament during 2006. Hong Kong MEPs recall that the Basic Law provides for Hong Kong’s Chief Executive ultimately to be elected by universal suffrage. Parliament Calls on the authorities of Hong Kong to: – set a timetable for universal suffrage acceptable to all democratic parties and the public, – abolish the appointment system in the District Council, – replace corporate voting by individual voting for functional constituencies of the Legislative Council, – broaden the electorate of the Election Committee; Finally, the House looks forward to seeing the Chief Executive and all members of the Legislative Council elected by means of an electoral system based on the principles of a multi-party democracy, accountability of the government to the legislature and genuinely effective governance which will confer a clear benefit on all the people of Hong Kong. Human rights in Russia – support for NGOs In adopting a resolution on human rights in Russia and the new NGO legislation, MEPs underline the importance of non-governmental organisations to a stable and democratic civil society which is built not only on principles such as the rule of law and freedom of speech but also on the ability of citizens to associate freely. THe House expresses therefore its great concern about the draft law on amendments to Russian federal legislation on non-profit organisations and public associations and calls for the new legislation to comply with the norms and standards of the Council of Europe. MEPs hope that the Russian legislators will: (a) provide a clear definition of unacceptable political activities which may not be financed from foreign sources, (b) establish that a decision of a judicial and not a supervisory authority is the only ground for dissolution of NGOs and NPOs, (c) choose not to introduce the requirement of permanent residence for non-nationals as well as the age requirement, (d) ensure the right of non-nationals to establish NGOs in Russia and participate in their work, (e) ease the proposed powers of supervision by the authorities over NGOs, particularly as regards the requirements of financial accountability for resources supplied by foreign sponsors. Parliament appeals to the Russian Duma to take the necessary time to review and improve the amendments in the light of the recommendations made in the Presidential review, the Council of Europe Provisional Opinion and this Resolution. The House calls on the State Duma to start a broad consultation process involving all the democratic components of Russian civil society in order to find ways to genuinely encourage, support and consolidate the setting-up of NGOs. MEPs call on the incoming Austrian and Finnish Presidencies to raise the issues of respect for democracy and human rights at the next EU-Russia summits, to give the EU-Russia human rights dialogue a more prominent role and to further involve the European Parliament in this process. The House calls on the Russian authorities to cease politically motivated harassment of NGOs, especially those observing the situation in Chechnya such as the Russian-Chechen Friendship Society. Finally, MEPs call on the Council and the Commission to enhance their support for civil society in Russia and to increase allocations for promoting human rights.
On May 15, 2005, Ethiopia held the first open, multi-party, democratic elections in its 3,000 year history. It was an important milestone that gave the people of that country a sense of national pride and hope. Unfortunately, the elation that was so evident on election day was short lived. International observers cited serious vote counting irregularities and flaws in the electoral process.
Nearly 25 million Ethiopians – 90 percent of eligible voters – went to the polls and early counts indicated strong support for the opposition. As it became clear that the ruling party was in danger of losing its grip on power, the government stopped the vote counting in a blatant move to manipulate the results. Accusations of vote rigging forced the National Electoral Board of Ethiopia (NEBE) to delay the release of the official results.
The controversy led to protests in Addis Ababa, the Oromiya regions, and other provinces. On June 8, in response to protesters challenging the provisional results of the elections, Ethiopian security forces are accused of shooting at least 40 protestors, killing 26, temporarily detaining over 500 student protestors and arresting at least 50 people. Ethiopia’s main opposition political party, the Coalition for Unity and Democracy Party (CUDP) refused to take its seats in parliament in protest of the election results. Just recently, 50 members of the CUDP took their seats in Parliament, but there is some concern that they were pressured into doing so.
Last month, the situation in Ethiopia took a further turn for the worse. On November 1, following street demonstrations that erupted into four days of violence when police started shooting, at least 46 protesters were killed in Addis Ababa and other towns, and some 4,000 were arrested.
There have been numerous reports of widespread arbitrary detention, beatings, torture, disappearances, and the use of excessive force by police and soldiers against anyone suspected of supporting the CUDP detainees.
The detainees include distinguished Ethiopian patriots such as Hailu Shawel, president of the CUDP; Professor Mesfin Woldemariam, former chair of the Ethiopian Human Rights Council; Dr. Yacob Hailemariam, a former UN Special Envoy and former prosecutor at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda; Ms. Birtukan Mideksa, CUDP vice-president and a former judge; and Dr. Berhanu Negga, the recently elected Mayor of Addis Ababa and university professor of economics.
Today, the entire senior leadership of the CUDP is reportedly in jail and has been held incommunicado in harsh conditions, without access to their families or legal representatives. Amnesty International considers these individuals to be prisoners of conscience who have neither used nor advocated violence. The government of Prime Minister Meles Zenawi is seeking to charge them with treason, a capital offense, for the “crime” of urging their supporters to engage in peaceful protest on their behalf. CUDP leaders are scheduled to appear in court today, presumably to be officially charged with treason.
Journalists and members of the media have also been jailed. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, Ethiopian authorities have prevented most private newspapers from publishing, arrested or harassed local journalists and their family members, and threatened to charge journalists with treason. Thirteen journalists have been detained since last month’s anti-government protests, including two more who were just arrested this week.
It is particularly disturbing, when one considers these events, that since 1991 the government of Prime Minister Meles has received billions of dollars in foreign aid, including to strengthen democratic institutions and the rule of law in his country. Recently, the European Union suspended its aid to Prime Minister Meles’ government and is seeking ways to channel it to the Ethiopian people through private voluntary organizations
Last month, thousands of Ethiopians and their supporters in this country came to Washington to protest the violence and repression by the Meles government and to urge the Bush Administration to help establish real democracy and the rule of law in Ethiopia. Ethiopia has been an ally of the United States in combating international terrorism, yet it is using similar tactics against its own people.
Mr. President, over the past several years, Ethiopia has made progress in both political reform and economic development. But that progress has been overshadowed by the tragic events of the past six months. The government’s heavy handed tactics to steal the election and persecute those who sought to play by the rules of democracy, should be universally condemned.
The Bush Administration should make clear to Prime Minister Meles that if his government does not abide by the basic principles of democracy, due process and respect for human rights, including an end to the use of random searches, beatings, mass arrests and lethal force against peaceful protesters, and if political detainees are not released, that we will join with the European Union and suspend our aid to his government, including our support for financing from the World Bank and the African Development Bank other than for basic human needs. There should be severe consequences for such a flagrant subversion of the will of the Ethiopian people.
WASHINGTON, Dec. 14, 2005, 11:00 p.m. – Dozens of Ethiopians yesterday braved the cold to protest a forum on the democratization of their country being held at The Washington Times newspaper’s headquarters.
More than 50 protesters chanted “Washington Times break your silence” and held signs that said “Your darling eats his own young” during a more than three hour protest of Interreligious and International Federation for World Peace-sponsored event.
The IIFWP is an organization led by Unification Church founder Rev. Sun Myung Moon, owner of The Times.
IIFWP had invited Aurelia E. Brazeal, former Ethiopian Ambassador, and current Ambassador David H. Shinn to its forum, but other U.S. government and private sector officials attended in their place.
“Those people who are sitting in there are the ones who are supporting the killing in Ethiopia,” said Zenash Teferra, a protester.
Elias Kifle, another protester, agreed.
“We are asking The Washington Times to pay attention to the situation in Ethiopia,” he said. “Right now The Washington Times – and the rest of the media – are ignoring the genocide in Ethiopia, just like they ignored genocide in Rwanda.”
There were no arrest of the protesters who say Ethiopian authorities used excessive force to quell post-election protests that led to at least 82 deaths.
IIFWP Secretary-General James P. Flynn said the protesters left after he allowed two members from the group to address the forum.
“We know this is a polarizing issue and we are trying to allow for some communication,” he said.
Note: This reporter covers Washington, D.C. government for The Washington Times.
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