Ethiopian civic and political groups, media, activists, scholars, and artists announce that November becomes “Ethiopian Election Massacre” commemoration month around the world. In preparation to commemorate the 5th anniversary of the Ethiopian Election Massacre, a worldwide task force has been formed. The task force organizes various activities and a worldwide conference next month.
On May 15, 2005, over 26 million Ethiopians voted peacefully to elect their leaders. As the results started to come in, showing a landslide victory for the opposition party, Meles Zenawi went on TV and declared a state of emergency. He also ordered re-votes in several districts where members of his party went down in defeat, banned political rallies, and unleashed his killers against peaceful citizens who protested his attempt to steal the election.
When the Addis Ababa Police showed restraint, Meles ordered all of them to be disarmed, and gave the Federal Police and his personal army, the Agazi, a shoot-to-kill order.
The Agazi and Federal Police snipers from roof tops and military trucks gunned down young, hundreds of unarmed protesters with 50 caliber rifles. Over 50,000 students and other individuals were rounded up and sent to concentration camps in remote parts of the country. All senior members of the opposition CUD were arrested. All the private press were shut down.
The 2005 election massacre was one of the darkest moments in the history of Ethiopia.
This coming November, we will remember those fellow Ethiopians who gave their lives for their right to vote and for their vote to be counted.
Let’s come together to remember the victims of Ethiopian Election Massacre.
Let’s also unite and devise a new strategy to fight for a better Ethiopia where freedom, democracy and justice will prevail.
More details will released by the organizing committee in the coming few days.
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The Ethiopian Election Massacre Remembrance Task Force
The man who is fondly called by TPLFites (Woyannes) as Abo Sebhat is reportedly spending more of his time in his home region of Tigray after the ruling couple Meles Zenawi and Azeb Mesfin unceremoniously ousted him from the party last month.
More than Meles, according to observers, it was Azeb who orchestrated Sebhat’s humiliating {www:departure} from TPLF, enraging his supporters in Ethiopia and the Diaspora.
Azeb has been amassing {www:enormous} wealth to the point now she is the second most powerful person in Ethiopia next to Meles, who also has consolidated his power in a recent leadership reshuffle. However, by going after Sebhat, who is called the father of TPLF by Woyanne veterans, Meles and Azeb might have overreached.
Sebhat may be a {www:drunkard} old man, but he still commands the loyalty of a significant number of {www:rank-and-file} TPLF members.
Another disgruntled member of the ruling junta is Berhane Gebrekristos, who had hopped to become Minister of Foreign Affairs.
The internal squabbles inside the Woyanne camp is affecting the social life of Woyanne kids as well. Recently Sebhat Nega’s son Tekeste has removed from his Facebook those “friends” whose parents are thought to be Meles loyalists.
Billionaire Al Amoudi is also unhappy these days with the Meles regime. Azeb is taking over the real estate industry, which forced his high rise office buildings to remain vacant. Sheraton Hotel is losing money and could be taken over by the state-owned Commercial Bank of Ethiopia.
When Al Amoudi’s chief assistant, Abinet Gebremeskel, was in Washington DC recently, he was bitterly complaining about Azeb to friends. He confided to friends that he might drop every thing in Ethiopia and move to the U.S.
On the surface, Meles and Azeb may currently seem to be in full control, but there is trouble brewing every where.
TIME magazine writes about opposition leader Birtukan Mideksa’s release and questions whether it is for show. TIME also points about the West’s {www:implicit} approval of Meles Zenawi’s anti-human rights conducts by continuing to give him hundreds of millions of dollars in assistance every year. His regime has received over a billion dollars from the U.S. Gov’t alone in 2009.
Meles has come under little pressure to lead his country any other way — and his {www:semantics} come straight from his allies. A U.S. State Department briefing note on Ethiopia exemplifies Western {www:equivocation} by giving the impression that the country is moving forward. – TIME
The billions of dollars in assistance and military training the Meles brutal regime is receiving from the Obama Administration makes the Ethiopian people’s struggle for freedom extremely difficult.
Ethiopia’s beggar dictator Meles Zenawi thought by forcing opposition leader Birtukan Mideksa to sign an apology letter he can {www:humiliate} her and her supporters. But when you look at the interview she was forced to give today on the Woyanne-controlled ETV and the apology letter itself, it is glaringly clear that she was made to give the apology under extreme {www:duress}, having been subjected to mental torture, including {www:solitary} confinement, for the past 21 months. More than any thing, the forced {www:apology} letter and the ETV interview prove how miserable, cowardly thugs Meles and Woyannes are. Had Birtukan been in their place, she would never do such an inhumane thing against a peaceful, defenseless person. Birtukan’s words in the video below is an indictment against the Meles barbaric regime. — Elias Kifle
Opposition leader Bertukan Mideksa has been released from Kaliti jail after spending six hundred forty four days, one hundred forty of it in {www:solitary confinement}. We are happy she is reunited with her family and loved ones.
She was thrown into a rat infested jail not because she committed some dastardly crime but for the simple reason of demanding justice and the rule of law in her homeland. Bertukan was what is called a ‘political prisoner.’
The fact that she was the leader of the largest political party and the country was in the process of holding general elections was a {www:factor} in her imprisonment. Her determination to participate in the election process and her {www:overwhelming} popularity with the public was a cause of concern for those in power.
They solved their {www:dilemma} by the only way they know. Bribe, blackmail, jail, exile or kill are the options the TPLF regime brings to the table. They choose jailing in Birtukan’s case.
That it was the wrong choice has been made clear during her two years stay. Her imprisonment became a ‘cause celebre’ for the Ethiopian people. Her {www:incarceration} highlighted the absence of rule of law in Ethiopia. Chairman Birtukan became a rallying point. Her plight was discussed in the US Congress, European Parliament, Noble Prize Committee, Sakharov Prize and many other international awards. What the regime did to her became the {www:symbol} of what is wrong in Ethiopia.
Her freedom should be seen as a beginning of what is to come. Birtukan is but one of the many Ethiopian citizens languishing in Woyane jail because they were deemed to be a ‘threat’ to the ethnic regime. There are thousands of nameless Ethiopians still in jail. Today, as we celebrate the release of Birtukan let us not forget those thousands left behind.
We are not thankful to the regime nor do we see it in a different light. The release of one individual does not wash off the crimes against eighty million people. We know she was released because her country people would not stop invoking her name and her cause in every gathering.
If those in power think that her release would stop the struggle for freedom they are sadly mistaken. If they think releasing one of many will change how we look at our jailers they need to go back and study history. We assure them that the quest for freedom cannot be satisfied by some symbolic act or public relations {www:gimmick}.
Welcome home Chairman Birtukan; we have a lot of unfinished business awaiting us.
Birtukan Mideksa has been released today after spending over 600 days in jail, out of which 200 days in solitary confinement where she was subjected to mental torture. The Woyanne beasts released her having accomplished their mission of conducting a fake election and forming an illegitimate government. Awramba Times shares with us the following photos that show Birtukan greeting her supporters at her residence.
