By Rachel Lewis

In a country where politics is regarded as a man’s domain, Ethiopian women are leading the struggle against tyranny, writes KE’s Women’s Affairs correspondent Rachel Lewis.

A woman in her twenties walks on a muddy path sporadically speckled with red sand and reaches her destination. The way she respires betrays excitement. She wears black gown and carries a cake, gift wrapped with greaseproof paper and ribbons. A group of people follow her, their faces knotted with utter exhilaration. It is Lidya’s graduation day and family members have gathered to celebrate the achievements of their beloved daughter, niece and sister. There is food, and smiles and laughter all around. As her mother looks on, beaming tearfully with pride, the new graduate excitedly discusses her plans for the future amidst the well-meaning interjections of her gathered relatives and friends.

This scene should ring familiar to anyone who has ever attended a graduation celebration. What makes this a rather unique and remarkable celebration is that it is being held in Kaliti Federal Prison in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, during the strict one-hour visitation period allotted the nation’s political prisoners. Kaliti prison is a collection of wide hovels made of corrugated iron and concrete. The celebration is taking place at the stand where prisoners meet their relatives during the visitation hours. It is unbearably hot by the sweltering midday sun, which followed the morning drizzle. There are no decorations and music is prohibited, though a few defiant relatives absently hum quiet refrains, while wild mice scurry underfoot in fierce competition for the leftover crumbs of the modest graduation feast. In a few moments time, the ‘10-minute warning’ will be announced by the head guard over a crackling loud-speaker and the celebrations will immediately come to a close—dishes and leftovers are hurriedly stuffed back into bags, goodbyes exchanged, and palms pressed. Mother and daughter stand face to face, in a final private moment—the mother bravely smiles, her repeated congratulations punctuated by the sobs that rack her small frame, while the daughter nods and whispers words of comfort as she turns to leave, masking the pain of goodbye with a maturity far beyond her years.

The unexpected festivities came as a wonderful surprise to federal prisoner Nigist Gebrehiwot, 48, who was unable to attend the graduation ceremony of her only daughter in July 2006. This high school arts teacher and mother of three remains one of the political prisoners who languish here, arrested in November 2005 during the sweeping government crackdown following ast year’s contested elections. For thirteen months she has been confined to a cell occupied by 70 other women, accused of treason and ‘attempts to incite genocide’—charges which, if upheld, carry sentences of life-imprisonment and even the death penalty. The human-rights organization Amnesty International calls Nigist and fellow treason defendants “prisoners of conscience…imprisoned solely on account of their non-violent opinions and activities”. Yet they continue to await sentencing in a political trial widely condemned for its ‘failure to observe internationally recognized standards of fair trial before impartial and independent judges.’

Nigist is one of the less known figures among the defendants. However, when she speaks she is startlingly eloquent, passionate and packages her messages with a gloss of romantic optimism. “We have seen how passionate people are about their freedom. They (the government) could not force us to live long like this,“ she says with a defiant note to her sound. The trial is great mockery of justice for her. “There is no evidence against us,” Nigist states simply. “We campaigned and won the election according to the law of the country. We didn’t try to oust the government unconstitutionally. We didn’t even ask the government to step down though we knew we won the election. We (instead) raised issues of building democratic institutions; to make sure that what happened in the election of last year would not be repeated…So the trial is political. They (the government) arrested us because the people were with us, and they wanted to keep power at any cost for many, many years to come.”

A passionate defender of individual rights, Nigist was one of the founders of Ethiopian Human Rights Council, the first national institution dedicated to investigating and documenting abuses of individual rights. EHRCO was dismissed by EPRDF as tool for the opposition and treated as an enemy. Nigist learnt her lessons. She jettisoned her view that change can come without political struggle and jumped to the frying pan that is Ethiopian politics. In August 2004, she became one of the first registered members of the Kestedemena opposition party, a member of the Coalition for Unity and Democracy, Ethiopia’s biggest political party. As a paid party organizer, She went on to play an integral role in designing election strategy with Dr. Berhanu Nega and, three months after the elections, was voted to the Central Council of CUDP.

Daily life for this politician has since grown uncomfortably stagnant within the prison confines, and the anguish of being removed from her family continues to wear upon her and the children. Following the death of her husband, Negist assumed the responsibility of sole breadwinner and her lengthy detention has placed the family under great financial strain. The mental health of her two sons has signficantly deteriorated over the past year and she is forced to continually worry about their condition. “My imprisonment is a big cost for my boys,” she explains. “They are having a hard time taking the injustice. But my daughter is now a mother, and she is getting stronger and stronger every day.”

Nearby, a woman dressed in caramel-colored coat talks with her mother in Tigrigna. Her cheer exhibits a deliberate attempt to defy her sad reality. Living in the same overcrowded cell as Nigist, this young mother struggles with the agony of being separated from her only child. Serkalem Fasil, 32, journalist and former owner of three prominent independent national newspapers, has also been imprisoned here for over a year without charge.

Prison baby

At four months pregnant, she was arrested along with her husband, journalist Eskinder Nega, for publishing materials severely critical of the government. On Tuesday, November 1 2005, their offices were searched and the next day security forces were dispatched to arrest the couple in their home. Upon arrival, they discovered that the pair had already escaped and gone into hiding. Instead, her mother was taken hostage and held in custody for five days while the pictures of the couple were broadcast on national television, accompanied by a public arrest warrant and a statement denouncing them as dangerous criminals. For three weeks they remained in hiding, during which time her closest brother was arrested and then released, only to inadvertently lead government agents who were assigned to track down the ‘fugitives’ to their hiding spot.

In the months that followed, Serkalem endured a difficult pregnancy within the Squalid conditions of her cell—forced to cope alone with the wildly fluctuating temperatures of the tropics and frequent prison outbreaks of lice and infectiousdisease. Despite such hardship, she continued to display remarkable courage, regularly appearing in court with her head held high, rising with the other defendants at the bench when requested even during the final stages of her third trimester. According to Amnesty reports, she was denied sufficient medical and pre-natal care throughout the pregnancy, and eventually gave birth to her son in the undesirable conditions of the police hospital under 24-hour official guard.

What should have been one of the most joyous occasions in this new mother’s life—that special bonding period that initially occurs between a mother and her child–was quickly cut short; following the birth, she was permitted to remain in the hospital with her son for only two weeks before he was removed from her care and placed with relatives. Consequently, the baby became seriously ill in the premature absence of conjugal feeding and Serkalem soon fell into a deep depression, unable to bear the separation from her husband and newborn child.

Though her spirits have since lifted, the imprisoned journalist deeply regrets being denied the opportunity to care for her son during the earliest months of his life–forced instead to determine his characteristics, behavior, sounds and developments from fleeting visits, the reports of relatives and her imagination. The circumstances facing these two women seem impossibly unjust. Yet reports after reports have concluded that theirs is a story that has become increasingly common throughout this Sub-Saharan nation—and exist among thousands of others similarly persecuted by the current regime.

According to recent global governance indicators, the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF), under the leadership of Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, ranks among the most corrupt in the world—internationally condemned for escalating government-led human rights abuses and ongoing suppression of legitimate political activities. Following the widely disputed elections of last year, the government launched a massive campaign against freedom of expression–banning all independent media and expelling a foreign correspondent from the country. During demonstrations in both June and November 2005, police opened fire on the unarmed protesters, killing over 193 men, women and children and wounding hundreds more. An estimated 30, 000 citizens were subsequently rounded up and imprisoned throughout the country—scholars, professors, civil service workers, students, prominent social leaders and the majority of the CUDP leadership.

Despite such widespread oppression, the peaceful internal struggle for democracy continues, led, in part, by a growing number of women—mothers, grandmothers, lawyers, teachers, journalists, doctors, members of civil society and political leaders—determined to pave the way of freedom for the generations to come. One such prominent leader is Bertukan Mideska, 32, the young and charismatic former federal judge and Kinijit Vice-Chairperson arrested and imprisoned in November 2005. At age 25, she was one of the youngest women in Ethiopian history to run for Parliament. She ran independently with anti-corruption platform. Election observers claimed that the ruling party cheated her out of winning.

Birtukan rose to national prominence as a judge presiding over a high-profile case between Meles Zenawi and the former Minister of Defense (on trial for ‘corruption’, following the TPLF split). In an unprecedented act of defiance, she released the defendant on bail, citing lack of sufficient evidence to deny him bail despite being strictly ordered by the Prime Minister to do so. The news of the courageous young woman who dared to uphold the independence of the law, quickly spread throughout the country and Bertukan immediately became a national role model and hero.

Today, however, this energetic woman remains confined in Kaliti prison, held captive with dozens of violent criminals in a single, crowded cell. It is here that she too has spent the past year of her life, forced for now from the political arena. Although the current national crisis continues to occupy her attention, she, as of late, has been increasingly plagued by mounting personal concerns. As the sole-breadwinner and primary care-giver of her elderly mother, half-sister and young daughter, Bertukan continually worries about their provision in her absence. Her family is now surviving on the dwindling sum of money she saved prior to her imprisonment and though currently also assisted by the generosity of neighbors friends and CUDP supporters in the Diaspora and here, her mother is fearful, confiding, “When her savings run out, I don’t know what we’ll do.”

In addition to worrying about their financial security, Bertukan finds being apart from her daughter increasingly difficult now, as each day serves to deprive her of another precious memory of her childhood. The little girl is brought to the prison during the designated visiting hour every Sunday afternoon and appears to recognize the woman behind bars, but her grandmother quietly admits that the child “does not know her mother anymore”.

Lawyer’s treasury

For a brief political career, Bertukan’s contributions have proven incredibly significant. As a result of her historical verdict as federal judge in April 2002, she was repeatedly passed over for promotion, and consequently decided to move into private law practice, where her services became instantly in high demand. As an accomplished criminal lawyer, she reportedly took on many cases ‘pro-bono’during this period, much to the chagrin of her colleagues. Following last year’s elections, she volunteered her services to represent the official opposition and, due to her skill and dedication, was soon invited to join the party. Almost immediately, she was promoted to Member of the Executive Committee of the coalition Rainbow Party and in September 2005 was elected as the Vice-Chairperson of the CUDP.

Bertukan is widely recognized for her social awareness, bravery, compassion, personal work-ethic, and exemplary leadership style—strictly principled yet gently compromising. This unique blend of characteristics lead to a tremendous regard and love for her within the community, evidenced most clearly by the monumental sacrifices made on her behalf in attempt to protect her from arrest. When police first arrived at her family home in the Ferensai Legacion area of the city, neighbors quickly surrounded her residence in protest. “Almost immediately….our neighbors came to protect Bertukan”, her mother recounted, “they threw stones at the soldiers…trying to chase them away”. She was nonetheless arrested in another place that afternoon along with CUDP leader and renowned human-rights advocate Professor Mesfin Woldemariam. When security forces returned the next day with Bertukan in custody to search the premises of her home, they found hundreds of people gathered there, demanding her immediate release. Fierce clashes broke out between the policemen and the protestors, amidst chants of praise for the Ethiopian heroine, and five people were killed by police-fire before (to prevent further bloodshed) Bertukan finally convinced her supporters to allow her to go to prison.

Although daily life spent among criminals remains, admittedly, a “great personal challenge”, such overwhelming national love and sacrifice has remained with Bertukan throughout her confinement. As a “firm believer in the human spirit”, she remains determined not to let the ongoing conflicts regularly witnessed between inmates diminish her enthusiasm for her fellow brothers and sisters, constantly reminding herself “that there is a better world out there, with better human beings”. According to close friends, she chooses to spend most of her time reading her favorite subjects of politics, religion and philosophy, and, despite repeated threats from prison administration (including permanent handcuffs and solitary confinement), has managed to smuggle out two open letters penned from her cell, which were subsequently published in various online international media sources. The first, Letter From Kaliti jail, was written in the spirit of Martin Luther King’s famous Letter from Birmingham Jail. It was an eloquent portrayal of her personal experience and unwavering commitment to the nation’s quest for democratic rule; in it she reveals,“…Indeed, living behind bar is painful. I have felt pained, when hearing about the struggle of my fellow countrymen; for being forced to experience it all vicariously, for being near but far away from the terrain of the fight. Yet the pain ends right there. Our incarceration hasn’t liquidated the spirit of freedom. Instead, it degrades those who are fighting against it into something hateful and undignified… Toughened by the crack down on dissent and other forms of oppression, other democrats, genuinely committed to the cause of liberty and equality are emerging… Thinking of that, even within the confinement of my cell, is a pleasant captivity.”

Taking rights seriously

“Tough” seems an unlikely adjective to describe the soft-spoken, 52-year-old Mulunesh Abebayehu—former school-teacher and mother of five. Yet even after enduring seven months in federal prison without charge, and ongoing government surveillance that has left her fearing for her life, this resilient woman refuses to back down from her role in the nation-wide quest for freedom. She is but another unlikely hero of Ethiopia’s peaceful political struggle—mother, breadwinner, opposition party member and ongoing victim of government persecution, who continues to sacrifice much in hopes of democratic transition. As one who grew up in a generation where politics was exclusively considered a “man’s business”, Mulunesh Abebeyhu serves as a shining testament to this country’s changing circumstances. Despite increasing harassment and the recent denial of asylum abroad, she continues to speak candidly with international human rights workers and foreign journalists at every opportunity–a rare demonstration of courage in a land where such freedom of expression is ‘unofficially’ punishable by death. When asked to explain the reason for her continued pursuit of democracy, her answer is straightforward: “I love my country. And I follow its history. The constitution says that every person can enjoy and participate in politics, so if they pronounce rights on paper, why don’t they respect them?”

Three months after the elections, Mulunesh was arrested and incarcerated in Ziway Federal Prison (widely-considered a concentration camp)–accused of slander and various acts of civil disobedience. She was forced to inhabit a cell with 86 other women. During her confinement, she witnessed the torture of several prisoners and was herself physically abused on two occasions, in addition to being repeatedly punished in solitary confinement. With a shudder she recalls her days in captivity, telling of the rats that regularly bit the feet of the women as they slept, and the foul prison food she was forced to consume: “They gave us water, shiro wot (a type of stew) and injera (traditional bread)…but the injera had small stones in it, so you often could not eat it…Even the Red Cross worker who tasted the bread…could not eat it!”

After being imprisoned for more than half a year without trial (in three different locations), Mulenesh finally decided to take measures into her own hands, and embarked on a five-day personal hunger strike, which left her critically ill. She was taken to the police hospital where she spent two days before she was summoned and released without charge—carrying a signed letter from the Ministry of Justice which bore the ominous warning that she could again be arrested and detained “at any time”.

Upon release, she discovered that she had been demoted without explanation from her former teaching position of over 30 years (as an eigth-grade civics teacher) to a grade four classroom and transferred to a district far from her home. Working conditions soon became impossible for her to bear; the school director allegedly followed her “step by step” throughout the day for months and she was severely ostracized by the entire staff due to her political affiliations. One man was reportedly beaten by police for simply speaking with her. She was finally left with no option but to retire, and now faces the daunting task of supporting her family on a pension of less than half her former salary. Her husband is also retired, unable to work due to health problems, and Mulunesh is worried that she will be unable to feed her youngest daughter (an orphan she took into her home a decade ago) and continue to send her to school.

Mulunesh is, doubtless, happy to be released from prison. Nevertheless, she continues to face severe harassment on a regular basis, and has consequently chosen to live under self-imposed house arrest. She most regrets the toll that her political opinions have taken on her family. Most of her relatives now want nothing to do with her, and her children have fled the family home, fearing that police forces will return during the night to tear their family apart for a second time.

In speaking of the further struggle that inevitably lies ahead, her voice drops to barely above a whisper, “As I look at things now,” she explains, “democracy will not come soon to Ethiopia. It may take one century. The Derg professed democracy without implementing it. We have also seen no real change since this government came to power…I know democracy, but it does not work in practice here. Sometimes I fear that my children and even my children’s children will not see it.” Mulunesh’s uncertain future hasn’t changed her unwavering commitment. “What more can happen?” she reasons. “They already took me to prison…but I am still here talking face to face. I am not afraid for myself…but I want to save my children…I fear that my politics is a risk to them.”

Women raise the mantle of freedom

The lives of these women—Negist, Serkalim, Bertukan, and Mulunesh–who dared to envison a country where infants are no longer torn from their mother’s grasp and individual rights and freedoms are upheld, stand testament to the vital, but often forgotten, role occupied by the brave women behind Ethiopia’s current political struggle.

Being born a woman in the Horn of Africa is sadly often considered to be a curse. Throughout this populous, poverty-stricken region, women traditionally assume the majority of hard labor in addition to raising the children. Despite often serving as the sole provider for the family, spousal abuse is common and gender mutilation is still widely practiced in many countries. Modern Ethiopia is no exception. In the rural regions of this country, girls are continually discriminated against from birth, often denied educational opportunities (and thus desirable future employment) and forced into early “marriages of convenience”.

In recent years, however, this country has seen a tentative, gradual reversal of such conditions, beginning in the streets and homes of Addis, as many women now occupy positions in civil service, law, business and politics. Prior to the elections, women of all ages reportedly flocked from rural areas to attend organized “voter education seminars”, and later stood in queues for hours under the hot sun merely for the chance to vote. These women clearly demonstrate that the national struggle for democracy can no longer be considered the ‘existential struggle of an educated upper class’; stories of illiterate female household servants who stood alone all night guarding the ballot bags from potential vote-rigging are common, and thousands of women throughout the country have since followed their example, sacrificing their families, careers and even their lives for the cause.

Either directly, (as in the case of these four women) or otherwise through continued struggle for survival in the absence of husbands imprisoned or murdered by government forces, countless Ethiopian women have risen up from their traditional roles and ascribed social positions to strengthen and fuel the growing movement for democracy. Almost every household has a story of persecution and similarly unexpected bravery to tell—a poor and elderly mother who daily struggles to make the journey to federal prison to feed her son, the bright young woman left behind to juggle a career and raise her children alone, or the middle-aged mother struggling to learn a new craft after being suddenly forced to generate enough income to support her entire family. These are stories that need to be told again and again.

By Stephanie McCrummen, Washington Post Foreign Service

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia — War or no war with Somalia, Mulunesh Abebayhu wants out. Out of her teaching job, where Ethiopian security forces constantly harass her because of her political views. Out of this city, where hundreds of protesters were killed by police bullets after disputed elections last year. And, if she can manage, out of this country that she believes has plunged into the abyss of dictatorship at the hands of its prime minister, Meles Zenawi, a staunch ally of the United States in the vulnerable Horn of Africa.

“He confuses the Westerners so that he can keep ruling,” said Abebayhu, 54, an opposition member arrested along with an estimated 30,000 others in the sweeping post-election crackdown last year. “Our party does not believe in this war. Our priority is to eradicate poverty, not go to war. Meles knows this war is a way for his system to survive.”

As Ethiopia and Somalia’s Islamic Courts movement inch closer each day to all-out conflict, a widespread view among people here in the capital is that Meles is using the conflict to distract people from a vast array of internal problems and to justify further repression of opposition groups, including ethnic Somalis in Ethiopia.

In particular, opponents of war say he is playing up the claim that there are al-Qaeda operatives within the Islamic Courts in order to maintain the support of the U.S. government, which relies on a steady flow of Ethiopian intelligence that some regional analysts say is of dubious value.

A recent attempt by Congress to sanction the Ethiopian government for widespread human rights violations failed after former Republican House leader Richard K. Armey (R-Tex.), lobbying on behalf of the Ethiopian government, argued that the United States needs Ethiopia in order to fight terrorism.

“We don’t know why the Americans let them get away with it,” said Abebayhu, who was denied her request for a U.S. visa and who said she receives death threats regularly.

Meanwhile, Meles has become so disliked in the city that people compare him unfavorably to the former dictator known as “the Butcher of Addis Ababa,” Mengistu Haile Mariam, who was convicted last week of genocide after a trial lasting 12 years.

Around Victory Square, one of many roundabouts in this city of a thousand cafes and tin-patch markets, passersby offered opinions similar to that of Nemera Bersisa, 35, a record-keeper on his way home from work.

“I believe the Dergue regime is better than this one, even if they killed people,” he said, referring to Mengistu’s rule. “This regime is democratic only in words. They kill people without any law, and they arrest people without a reason. This government is trying to stay in power by using different mechanisms, like claiming the Somalis are invading. But this is not the case. Meles is trying to externalize his problems.”

And those problems are vast.

After 12 years in power, Meles presides over a nation that still does not produce enough food to feed its own people, relying on the U.N. World Food Program to supplement struggling farmers. The number of people infected with HIV is rising every year: At least 500,000 Ethiopians are living with the virus now, according to government figures. At least half of the population lives on less than $1 a day, which is not enough to buy a single meal.

A smattering of new skyscrapers have gone up in Addis Ababa lately, and in recent years, the gaudy Sheraton Hotel was built, a fortified palace of marble and brass and $100 Scotch set amid a rusting neighborhood of leaning, one-room shacks. Locals call it Paradise in Hell.

Last year’s elections began with high hopes and degenerated into a bloodbath. Opposition groups, who made significant gains but did not win a majority according to the national election board, accused the government of rigging the tally and flooded the streets to challenge the results. During the rallies in May and November last year, unarmed protesters were sprayed with bullets while others were hunted down, killed inside their homes and in their gardens, in front of children and neighbors.

Though the official government report released in October listed 197 demonstrators killed, some members of the government’s own commission and human rights groups have estimated that the number could be as high as 600. Seven police officers were killed.

Since then, the mood around the capital has been grim.

“After the elections, the government is ruling Ethiopia by military force and propaganda, we all know that,” Bersisa said. “We’re dead after the election.”

While most of the 30,000 prisoners taken after the election have been released, several hundred opposition leaders remain in jail, including the elected mayor of Addis Ababa, Birhanu Nega, who was a professor in the United States, and Haile Miriam Yacob, who served on the U.N. commission settling a border dispute between Ethiopia and Eritrea.

Four private newspapers have been shut down. A reporter for the Associated Press was expelled. And random arrests on the streets of Addis Ababa continue daily, people say.

Residents of a largely Ethiopian Somali neighborhood called Rwanda say that government security forces have been rounding up people who refuse to swear allegiance to Meles’ ruling party, a charge the government denied.

“Their main target is Ethiopian Somalis,” said Reagan Dawale, 30, who left his home in the Somali region of Ethiopia because of the tense atmosphere there, only to find a similar situation in the capital.

In a recent interview, Meles, a former Marxist guerrilla who shed his fatigues for tailored suits when he took power in a 1991 coup, referred to the opposition as leading an “insurrection” intent on overthrowing the government by violent means, a charge opposition leaders deny.

Meles has introduced a few words into the Ethiopian vocabulary. Someone who is out of line is a “fendata.” Dissatisfied, unemployed workers who must be controlled are the “adegnabozene.” A “bichameberat” is a person who has crossed into the danger zone.

Meles said he retains U.S. support when it comes to defending Ethiopia against the Islamic Courts movement, which now controls much of Somalia, including Mogadishu, the capital. Meles said the Islamic Courts have already attacked Ethiopia by arming secessionist Ethiopian Somali groups in the Ogaden region along the Somali border, a claim opposition leaders believe is both exaggerated and hardly a justification for war.

“Our argument is that all the governments we’ve known since 1960 say they want the Ogaden,” said Beyene Petros, leader of the main opposition group, the Coalition for Unity and Democracy, referring to Somalia.

The Islamic Courts say it is the Ethiopians that have invaded Somalia. While Meles has repeatedly denied having troops there, the United Nations and regional diplomats estimate that at least 8,000 Ethiopian soldiers are in Somalia, backing the weak and divided transitional government.

Petros said Meles is poised to make precisely the same miscalculation in the Horn of Africa that critics say the United States made in invading Iraq: that a vastly superior military force can crush an ideologically driven guerrilla campaign.

“We should defend our borders, but I don’t believe in a hot-pursuit campaign inside of Somalia,” Petros said. “And I don’t think this war is going to change the hearts of the Ethiopian people.”

By Stephanie McCrummen, Washington Post Foreign Service

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia — War or no war with Somalia, Mulunesh Abebayhu wants out. Out of her teaching job, where Ethiopian security forces constantly harass her because of her political views. Out of this city, where hundreds of protesters were killed by police bullets after disputed elections last year. And, if she can manage, out of this country that she believes has plunged into the abyss of dictatorship at the hands of its prime minister, Meles Zenawi, a staunch ally of the United States in the vulnerable Horn of Africa.

“He confuses the Westerners so that he can keep ruling,” said Abebayhu, 54, an opposition member arrested along with an estimated 30,000 others in the sweeping post-election crackdown last year. “Our party does not believe in this war. Our priority is to eradicate poverty, not go to war. Meles knows this war is a way for his system to survive.”

As Ethiopia and Somalia’s Islamic Courts movement inch closer each day to all-out conflict, a widespread view among people here in the capital is that Meles is using the conflict to distract people from a vast array of internal problems and to justify further repression of opposition groups, including ethnic Somalis in Ethiopia.

In particular, opponents of war say he is playing up the claim that there are al-Qaeda operatives within the Islamic Courts in order to maintain the support of the U.S. government, which relies on a steady flow of Ethiopian intelligence that some regional analysts say is of dubious value.

A recent attempt by Congress to sanction the Ethiopian government for widespread human rights violations failed after former Republican House leader Richard K. Armey (R-Tex.), lobbying on behalf of the Ethiopian government, argued that the United States needs Ethiopia in order to fight terrorism.

“We don’t know why the Americans let them get away with it,” said Abebayhu, who was denied her request for a U.S. visa and who said she receives death threats regularly.

Meanwhile, Meles has become so disliked in the city that people compare him unfavorably to the former dictator known as “the Butcher of Addis Ababa,” Mengistu Haile Mariam, who was convicted last week of genocide after a trial lasting 12 years.

Around Victory Square, one of many roundabouts in this city of a thousand cafes and tin-patch markets, passersby offered opinions similar to that of Nemera Bersisa, 35, a record-keeper on his way home from work.

“I believe the Dergue regime is better than this one, even if they killed people,” he said, referring to Mengistu’s rule. “This regime is democratic only in words. They kill people without any law, and they arrest people without a reason. This government is trying to stay in power by using different mechanisms, like claiming the Somalis are invading. But this is not the case. Meles is trying to externalize his problems.”

And those problems are vast.

After 12 years in power, Meles presides over a nation that still does not produce enough food to feed its own people, relying on the U.N. World Food Program to supplement struggling farmers. The number of people infected with HIV is rising every year: At least 500,000 Ethiopians are living with the virus now, according to government figures. At least half of the population lives on less than $1 a day, which is not enough to buy a single meal.

A smattering of new skyscrapers have gone up in Addis Ababa lately, and in recent years, the gaudy Sheraton Hotel was built, a fortified palace of marble and brass and $100 Scotch set amid a rusting neighborhood of leaning, one-room shacks. Locals call it Paradise in Hell.

Last year’s elections began with high hopes and degenerated into a bloodbath. Opposition groups, who made significant gains but did not win a majority according to the national election board, accused the government of rigging the tally and flooded the streets to challenge the results. During the rallies in May and November last year, unarmed protesters were sprayed with bullets while others were hunted down, killed inside their homes and in their gardens, in front of children and neighbors.

Though the official government report released in October listed 197 demonstrators killed, some members of the government’s own commission and human rights groups have estimated that the number could be as high as 600. Seven police officers were killed.

Since then, the mood around the capital has been grim.

“After the elections, the government is ruling Ethiopia by military force and propaganda, we all know that,” Bersisa said. “We’re dead after the election.”

While most of the 30,000 prisoners taken after the election have been released, several hundred opposition leaders remain in jail, including the elected mayor of Addis Ababa, Birhanu Nega, who was a professor in the United States, and Haile Miriam Yacob, who served on the U.N. commission settling a border dispute between Ethiopia and Eritrea.

Four private newspapers have been shut down. A reporter for the Associated Press was expelled. And random arrests on the streets of Addis Ababa continue daily, people say.

Residents of a largely Ethiopian Somali neighborhood called Rwanda say that government security forces have been rounding up people who refuse to swear allegiance to Meles’ ruling party, a charge the government denied.

“Their main target is Ethiopian Somalis,” said Reagan Dawale, 30, who left his home in the Somali region of Ethiopia because of the tense atmosphere there, only to find a similar situation in the capital.

In a recent interview, Meles, a former Marxist guerrilla who shed his fatigues for tailored suits when he took power in a 1991 coup, referred to the opposition as leading an “insurrection” intent on overthrowing the government by violent means, a charge opposition leaders deny.

Meles has introduced a few words into the Ethiopian vocabulary. Someone who is out of line is a “fendata.” Dissatisfied, unemployed workers who must be controlled are the “adegnabozene.” A “bichameberat” is a person who has crossed into the danger zone.

Meles said he retains U.S. support when it comes to defending Ethiopia against the Islamic Courts movement, which now controls much of Somalia, including Mogadishu, the capital. Meles said the Islamic Courts have already attacked Ethiopia by arming secessionist Ethiopian Somali groups in the Ogaden region along the Somali border, a claim opposition leaders believe is both exaggerated and hardly a justification for war.

“Our argument is that all the governments we’ve known since 1960 say they want the Ogaden,” said Beyene Petros, leader of the main opposition group, the Coalition for Unity and Democracy, referring to Somalia.

The Islamic Courts say it is the Ethiopians that have invaded Somalia. While Meles has repeatedly denied having troops there, the United Nations and regional diplomats estimate that at least 8,000 Ethiopian soldiers are in Somalia, backing the weak and divided transitional government.

Petros said Meles is poised to make precisely the same miscalculation in the Horn of Africa that critics say the United States made in invading Iraq: that a vastly superior military force can crush an ideologically driven guerrilla campaign.

“We should defend our borders, but I don’t believe in a hot-pursuit campaign inside of Somalia,” Petros said. “And I don’t think this war is going to change the hearts of the Ethiopian people.”

By Abdi Galgalo

Realizing that “…Iraq’s neighbors greatly affect its stability”, the Iraq Study Group puts forth a recommendation to the Bush administration to ?[s]top destabilizing interventions and actions by Iraq’s neighbors.? The report vividly shows that countries can willingly destabilize their neighbors at will for regional hegemony, and other selfish interests. Unless the Bush administration is waiting for Somalia or Horn of Africa Study Group?s recommendation, the destabilization role of Meles Zenawi regime in Somali must immediately be stopped now.

The only foreign force openly destabilizing Somalia at present is the Ethiopia Defense Force [currently under the control of the ruling Tigrean People’s Liberation Front – TPLF] and its security forces. Ethiopia?s military presence in Somalia is the main cause for the stalled peace talk between the Union of Islamic Court and Transitional Federal Government. The Zenawi force that has been menacing citizens on the streets of Oromia including the capital Finfinne (Addis Ababa), Gambella, Ogadenia, and Sidama has already been exported to the streets of Somalia. The International Crisis Group reported last year that ?in the rubble-strewn street of the ruined capital of [Somalia]?Ethiopian security services?are engaged in intimidation, abduction and assassination.? Moreover, a leaked U.N. report confirms the presence of up to 8,000 Ethiopian troops in Somalia in a clear violation of Somalia?s sovereignty.

The despotic regime justifies its intervention by supplying the international community with unsubstantiated claims of Islamists terrorism threat in Somalia. Contrary to Zenawi?s claim, the U.S Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, Jendayi Frazer, said last June that it was ?unclear whether the Islamic militia or elements within it were linked to, or gave shelter to al-Qaeda operatives?. No report has yet been released from the U.S. administration rescinding Jendayi Frazer?s statement. However, this official statement of the U.S does not correlate with the behind-the-scene actions of the U.S. ? which is, the (tacit or secretly expressed) support of Ethiopia?s military intervention in Somalia with the pretext of containing terrorism threat. In fact, the U.S. was the prime architect of the recent U.N. resolution that adopted the deployment of foreign troops at a time when Somalia is returning to relative normalcy. The resolution echoed Ethiopia?s claim to justify the deployment of foreign troops against the will of the majority of the Somali people and against the advice of many states and international agencies.

It is bewildering that the despotic Ethiopian regime is still being regarded as a ?staunch ally in the war against terrorism? while its track record show acts of domestic and cross-border terrorism. This U.S. stance on Ethiopia is contradictory to what Dr. Condoleezza Rice claimed to have learned from the failed U.S. policy in the Middle East. Dr. Rice said that “for 60 years, my country, the United States, pursued stability at the expense of democracy ?, and we achieved neither. Now, we are taking a different course. We are supporting the democratic aspirations of all the people”.

Ethiopia?s meddling in Somalia is a clear manifestation of the lack of a genuine multiparty system, the rule of the law, and democracy in Ethiopia. If the ruling party that has monopolized the state power contuses to hamper democratic transition, neither stability nor democracy will be achieved in the horn of Africa. Democracy and stability in Ethiopia and the horn at large can be achieved only when the aspiration of all the peoples of Ethiopia is achieved, which will effectively curb the Ethiopia?s ruling party aggression on neighboring countries.

The political, economic, and human right problems in Ethiopia are not unknown to the United States. Ambassador David Shinn, who was U.S. Ambassador to Ethiopia in the mid-to-late 1990’s, recently told a Harvard University conference that ?..Ethiopia has?a serious lack of true power sharing and weak governing institutions ?. [A]s long as there continues to be alienated groups in Ethiopia that believe, rightly or wrongly, they can not achieve their goals through the political process, these? [conflicts]? will continue and may worsen”. Shinn further warned against ?further alienation of the Oromo and Somali [Ogadenis]?.

The Tigrian ethnocratic regime in Ethiopia has employed a policy of suppressing targeted ethnonational groups, particularly the Oromos and the Ogaden Somalis. The alienation of the largest ethnonational group in the horn of Africa-the Oromo-has enabled the minority government to maintain state power in the hands of few loyal Tigrians. As a result, most Oromo political organizations, notably the Oromo Liberation Front, have been forced to go underground to struggle for the right of Oromos for national self-determination and for the establishment of a free, just, and democratic society in Ethiopia.

As a result of OLF?s departure, the Oromos are not fairly and genuinely represented in all affairs of the country. The relatively younger Oromo political parties, which were hoped to fill the ?representation vacuum?, have found it difficult to endure the brute nature of the Tigrian regime. Killing and intimidating Oromo MPs have become frequent occurrences in the country. As a result, some Oromo MPs have been forced to flee the country. The inhuman treatment of the Oromos has also caused the defection of many senior officials-judges, diplomats, military commanders, politicians and even athletes. Currently, over 30,000 Oromo political prisoners, including numerous political and civic leaders, are languishing in different prisons throughout Oromia. In an interview with the Guardian in London last month, the recently defected Oromia Supreme Court president has disclosed that there is an estimated 15,000-20,000 extra-judiciary killing committed by the state security apparatus in Oromia alone in the past 15 years.

While the vision of ?spreading democracy? to the Middle East ?required? the Bush administration to use military force, it is ironic that the peoples of Ethiopia are struggling against the U.S-backed undemocratic regime to achieve the same vision. The horn of Africa, particularly Ethiopia, is a region where democracy and the rule of law are chronically lacking. Perhaps, the Bush administration may not have realized that Africans, just like the rest of the people all over the World, yearn for freedom and democracy. In fact, the readiness of the Ethiopian populace to embrace democratic values of the West, as was amply demonstrated during the aborted May 2005 election, makes the Bush administration?s vision of ?spreading democracy? amenable for implementation in Ethiopia.

There is no justification to keep the Ethiopia?s dictator as an ally while the Oromos, who represent a good half of Ethiopia?s population, are being alienated, killed, and jailed for just being Oromos? How can a regime that steals elections and commits genocide against its own citizens be an ally of the greatest nation, the U.S.? The oppressed peoples of Ethiopia hope that the West, particularly the U.S., supports their aspirations rather than supporting a tyrant that is bent on destabilizing the Horn region. The continued support of the U.S. to the criminal regime in Ethiopia will be regarded not only as a betrayal of peoples? aspiration for freedom and democracy but also a betrayal of the very ideals of America-the fulfillment of people?s aspiration for freedom, equality, self-determination, justice, and human dignity.

Abdi Galgalo can be reached for comments at [email protected]

As the World watches as a full scale war threatens to erupt in Somalia, The Zenawi regime had better watch its Northern Border With Eritrea. The countries which have already fought one border war could find themselves in another if war in Somalia breaks out.

With several parties including the United Nations and the Transitional Government in Somalia making charges that Eritrea has been supplying the Union of Islamic Courts with both troops and arms. There have been several high profile incidents along the border between Ethiopia and Eritrea. These include defections by members of the Ethiopian Army and allegations of people smuggling across the border going both ways.

History tells us that a country fighting on two fronts does not do well. The French found out the hard way under Napoleon, Germany learned that lesson twice in 40 years and in the US the States that formed the Confederacy lost a conflict that had several fronts. So history does not bode well for the Zenawi Government.

 So there are several factors that could help decide if the Zenawi Government is successful. First is will the Oromo Stand loyal to Addis Ababa or will they join the Islamist Forces as they try to unite Somalia under a Islamic Government. Second is how many regional neighbors will play a role in the conflict? A report by the US State Department concluded that up to a dozen nations could get involved in this conflict. this will make the DRC war of the late 90s feel like a skirmish. Uganda has a debate going on in Parliament about whether or not they will send forces under an AU Mandate. What Kenya does is anybody’s guess.

There are two countries that could intervene if Necessary and they are the United States and France. Both erstwhile allies share a base in Djibouti. Both countries have rapid reaction forces stationed there and both nations have Naval and Air Assets in close Proximity. Any intervention may be on the short term due to the extent of the current deployment of the US Military worldwide.

So right now whether we like the actions and abuses of the Zenawi Government it may be in the best interests of the West to aid Ethiopia. The question of what concessions that the West will get from Addis Ababa may be done behind closed doors for now. But they will need to be done. And lip service to Democracy is not acceptable under any condition.

The author is a contributing editor to www.americanchronicle.com and comments on US Policy in Africa and Human Rights. He can be contacted at [email protected]