ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) — Ethiopian opposition politicians were barred from visiting their jailed leader, Birtukan Mideksa, Saturday after a U.S. State Department human rights report said her mental health has deteriorated.
Eight opposition politicians asked for access to Birtukan at the prison. They were met by prison head Abebe Zemichael and, after a heated argument in the street outside, were refused permission for not being family members.
Unity for Democracy and Justice party (UDJ) leader Birtukan, a 36-year-old single mother, is seen by analysts as the biggest threat to the almost 20-year-rule of Prime Minister Meles Zenawi. Ethiopia holds parliamentary elections on May 23.
“We are here today because we are worried about her health and we want to see for ourselves what her condition is,” senior UDJ official Seye Abraha told Reuters at the entrance to Kaliti prison, 20 km from the capital Addis Ababa.
“Only her mother and her daughter have been given access to her. They bar friends, they bar party colleagues, no lawyer, no independent doctors.”
Ethiopia’s last elections in 2005 ended with violence after the opposition said the government fixed its victory.
About 200 protesters were killed by soldiers in riots and opposition leaders, including Birtukan, were jailed for life after Meles said they were trying to oust him.
They were pardoned and released in 2007 when they signed a letter admitting to provoking the violence. Birtukan was sent back to prison in December 2008 after she denied responsibility for the trouble and said she did not ask for a pardon.
The U.S. State Department’s human rights report for 2009 said this month: “There were credible reports that Birtukan’s mental health deteriorated significantly during the year.”
It called her a political prisoner, echoing rights groups.
“She is severely depressed,” a relative who did not want to be named told Reuters. “We need to get an independent doctor, not a prison one, to see her.”
Ethiopian law permits friends and lawyers to visit prisoners.
Meles has said Birtukan was in “perfect” health, but that diplomats and journalists would not be allowed to visit her.
Analysts say Meles’ Ethiopian Peoples’ Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) coalition will win the May 23 poll.
The opposition says this is because they are harassed and jailed. The government says the opposition is trying to discredit a poll it has no chance of winning.
A report by Newsweek reveals that trucking companies controlled by Meles Zenawi’s wife Azeb Mesfin and other ruling party officials are being paid millions of dollars to transport food to famine victims in Ethiopia. Read Newsweek’s full report here.
(The Economist) — THE United States, the richest and most powerful nation on earth, is also the most generous donor to one of the poorest, Ethiopia. America says it gives $1 billion in aid every year to Africa’s second-most-populous country, which also happens to host the African Union’s headquarters.
Yet Barack Obama’s administration has barely stirred itself to protest against recent attempts by Ethiopia to jam programmes in Amharic, the country’s main language, beamed by the Voice of America, a respected state-funded broadcaster. Ethiopia’s prime minister warlord, Meles Zenawi, brazenly says he will continue to jam the signal for as long as it incites what he calls hatred. He has compared the Amharic service to the hate speech spewing from Radio Mille Collines, which helped provoke Rwanda’s genocide in 1994. The State Department called the comment inflammatory but seems loth to make Mr Zenawi suffer for it.
One reason is that the Pentagon needs Ethiopia and its bare-knuckle intelligence service to help keep al-Qaeda fighters in neighbouring Somalia at bay. Many of Washington’s aid people argue that, though Mr Zenawi is no saint, he still offers the best chance of keeping Ethiopia together; even now, as one of the world’s least developed countries, it cannot feed itself.
Human-rights campaigners think the limpness of America and European Union countries, especially Britain, in the face of Mr Zenawi gives him a free rein to abuse his own people. This week’s report by Human Rights Watch, a New York-based lobby, claims that, after 20 years in power, Mr Zenawi’s ruling Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front Tigrean People’s Liberation Front has “total control of local and district administrations to monitor and intimidate individuals at a household level.” With a general election due on May 23rd, opposition supporters, says the report, are often castigated as subversives by the government, denied the right to assembly, and harassed. The press has been “stifled”. Newspapers avoid writing about opposition parties or people the government says have terrorist links.
Furthermore, says Ben Rawlence, who wrote the report, “Meles is using aid to build a single-party state.” Foreign governments, he says, have colluded in eroding civil liberties and democracy by letting their aid be manipulated by Mr Zenawi. Because of his party’s stranglehold at village level, its members can decide on entitlements such as places for children in school and the distribution of food handouts. Peasants who back the opposition get less. Farmers complain they are denied fertiliser for the same reason.
The Ethiopian government Woyanne has denounced the report as outrageous and ridiculous. Mr Zenawi says that groups such as Human Rights Watch interpret human rights too narrowly. The only way to guarantee Ethiopia a free future, he argues, is to keep it stable while it continues to develop. His political calculations are straightforward. He reckons, for instance, that reporting by the Voice of America does more harm inside the country than outside criticism of his censorship.
In any case, Mr Zenawi has signed up for a code of electoral conduct and invited foreign election observers in. He still has time to win over critics before the election, for instance by freeing an imprisoned opposition leader, Birtukan Mideksa, as a goodwill gesture.
Aid-giving governments, for their part, are unlikely to change their minds. Even after hundreds of protesters were shot dead by the police after the last elections in 2004, aid to Ethiopia was only repackaged in different forms, not suspended. Besides, foreign politicians have promised their own voters that they will dish out large amounts of aid and argue that at least Ethiopia is less corrupt than many other African countries. Mr Zenawi understands this well—and exploits it.
Author Tesfaye GebreAb’s new book, Yederawiw Mastawesha, is due to be released on April 10 in Ethiopian stores around the world. The 400-page book is Tesfaye’s best work yet.
The following is an interview Netsanet Publishers recently conducted with Tesfaye GebreAb:
The Problem: The “Kilil” politics kept the peoples of Ethiopia residentially, occupationally, and culturally apart. A body of shared values did not emerge to weld the disparate peoples into any sort of coherent community. Indeed, the ethnic elements grew to distrust each other and were systematically manipulated by the ruling party into antagonistic relationships.
The Solution: The best way to deal with aggravated ethnic tensions is to build inter-ethnic coalitions through the recognition of the legitimate concerns of each ethnic group. This approach removes the fear that after the fall of the current divisive regime, change would result in another form of ethnic domination. Inter-ethnic coalitions are better established through people to people UNDERSTANDING and RECONCILIATION.”
The presentation below shows the Principles of Understanding and Reconciliation: (click on image enlarge)
TORONTO — Talented artists of Ethiopian and Eritrean heritage will showcase their works as the Selam Visual Arts Festival comes to the Gladstone Hotel in Toronto, Canada.
Eritrean-born downtown Toronto resident Robel Matthews will be among several established and emerging local artists exhibiting their works at the festival alongside the works of noted Ethiopian photographers Aida Muluneh, Michael Tsegaye and Antonio Fiorente.
Matthews, who moved to Canada in 2006, is one of the more established artists in the festival. The 28-year-old Regent Park resident has studied and practiced art for nearly two decades.
“I studied art when I was 10 and I started to draw with charcoal,” he said. “I lived in Kenya for six years and I had some solo exhibitions and group exhibitions there.”
The festival was organized by Sound the Horn, a group dedicated to empowering Ethiopian and Eritrean youth in Toronto. It came about after some young artists decided to find ways to slow the spread of HIV and AIDS among African youth in Canada.
“I have two artworks (in the show) that deal with the dangers of HIV and AIDS,” Matthews said. “They look at it in a universal way to show the dangers in all kinds of cultures.”
While Matthews does not know anyone who has been diagnosed with HIV or AIDS personally, he said it is important for youth to learn about the diseases.
“It’s something that too many young people have to deal with,” he said.
The Selam Visual Arts Festival will take place Saturday, March 27 and Sunday, March 28 at the Gladstone Hotel, 1214 Queen St. W. The festival will include an opening reception with some of the featured artists from 7 to 11 p.m. on Saturday and a question-and-answer session and live entertainment from 3 to 11 p.m. on Sunday.
For more information on the festival or on the work being done by Sound the Horn, visit www.soundthehorn.com
