Editor’s Note: There is a saying in Ethiopia — Ye Ayit Misikir Dinbit or Liju Dagna, Abatu Kemagna.
National Electoral Board of Ethiopia rejects election rerun call
ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) – The National Electoral Board of Ethiopia (NEBE) rejected opposition demands for a fresh election after the government last month won a landslide victory that the Europe Union and the United States said failed to meet international standards.
The ruling Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) and allied parties won 545 seats in the 547-member parliament, giving long-serving Prime Minister genocidal dictator Meles Zenawi another five years in power.
The Horn of Africa country’s largest opposition coalition, the eight-party Medrek, won just a single seat in parliament. Medrek and the smaller All Ethiopia Unity Party called for a rerun claiming vote rigging and widespread intimidation.
“We have looked at the application of the parties Medrek and the AEUP and neither of them came up with any evidence,” Addisu Gebregziabher, vice chairman of the National Electoral Board (NEB) told Reuters.
“We have discussed their request for a rerun and we have made a decision contrary to their desire. They brought only allegations, not evidence.”
COURT CHALLENGE
The aftermath of the May 23 poll is being closely watched by foreign diplomats in a country that is a growing destination for investment and Washington’s key ally in the Horn of Africa, where it is seen as a bulwark against Islamic militancy.
At Ethiopia’s last elections in 2005, an opposition coalition cried foul after the EPRDF and its allies won 327 seats. Riots erupted in the capital on two separate occasions. Security forces killed 193 protesters and seven policemen died.
Medrek immediately rejected the NEB decision and said it was now considering mounting a challenge to the election result through the courts.
“It is simply not true for them to say we submitted no evidence,” Negaso Gidada, a Medrek leader and former Ethiopian president, told Reuters.
“We submitted proof of ballots being thrown away, of our members being intimidated on voting day and in the run up to the election, and of people losing their food aid privileges if they refused to vote for the EPRDF.”
A European Union observer mission said the election was marred by the EPRDF’s use of state resources for campaigning and the United States said the government’s next steps could shape the future of U.S. ties to the country.
(Report by Barry Malone. Editing by George Obulutsa and Ralph Boulton)
ADDIS ABABA, ETHIOPIA (Sudan Tribune) – A second British citizen is reported having been shot to death in the volatile Ogaden region of Ethiopia bordering Somalia, a source said.
The report can’t independently be verified at this point but unconfirmed sources said that “the Ethiopian Woyanne Police in Ogaden Region had killed a British Citizen”.
Ms. Muna Cabdi Faarax, 21, had traveled from London to Ethiopia last month to visit her relative in Ogaden Region,”
The incident happened on Thursday in Capital of the Ogaden Region, Jigjiga.
Sources didn’t indicate the intention behind the killings; however a witness is reported as saying that “the incident shocked the local people and it was deliberately carried out by the Ethiopian Police in Jigjiga.”
Despite the murder claims that point fingers at police, a different report received today by Sudan Tribune shows that Muna Cabdi was not yet fully a British citizen and she was killed during a robbery.
Reached by phone, Ethiopian government spokesperson, Bereket Simon earlier told Sudan Tribune that he has no knowledge of the report, but he said that the Ethiopian government will do the necessary investigations.
Muna had come to the region to visit relatives.
It is reported that her family is now in contact with the Biritish Embassy in Ethiopia.
Last month a British man named as Jason Read, working for an oil company, was killed in Ogaden region.
The Indian Ocean Newsletter (ION), whose sources include French intelligence officials, has just published an analysis of what is next for the Meles regime in Ethiopia. The ION agrees with Ethiopian Review’s prediction that the genocidal regime is now setting its sight on Asmara after emptying the rubber stamp parliament in Addis Ababa of any opposition. The following is posted from the current edition of ION:
Zenawi wants to turn the page on 2005
For Several months Prime Minister genocidal dictator Meles Zenawi has been actively working to protect his position in the 23 May general election to turn the page on the insult in 2005 when the opposition won the poll in the capital. He succeeded beyond his hopes: the turnout was reported to be a massive 90% of the 32 million electors registered, with 95% of them voting for an EPRDF (governing coalition) candidate. The opposition was annihilated by this vote. The federal parliament was already a chamber to rubber-stamp government decisions; it will now become a place where no voice of discord is tolerated. The systematic intimidation of opponents and the widespread usage of State institutions and funds for the EPRDF election campaign are the main reasons explaining this outcome. Nevertheless, by closing the door on the legal opposition, Meles Zenawi is de facto putting his regime on track for a one-party State. The only people to be pleased by the outcome will be the armed opposition, which thus sees the justification of its prediction that any attempt at legal change in Ethiopia is doomed to failure.
Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde
Sophisticated and suave when he is in international circles, a supporter of the free-market when it comes to the economy, Meles Zenawi has remained very inflexible on matters of domestic policy. He has been reinforced in this view by his experience in the 2005 election, when he found that giving lee-way to the opposition mainly profited the latter. Since then, he has constantly repeated that he would not renew the experience and putting his money where his mouth is, has done all he could to restrict the opposition’s political space. International donors are generally little aware of this “dark” side of the Ethiopian prime minister, which regularly makes its appearance in meetings among EPRDF dignitaries that he generally chairs in an authoritarian manner. In one of them, at the beginning of May, attended by several ministers (Addisu Legesse, seyoum Mesfin, Bereket Simon, Tefera Walwa, and others), he accused the legal opposition parties (Medrek and OFDM) of being infiltrated by illegal organizations (Ginbot 7, OLF, EPRP) and had called for them to be investigated. He even went so far as to say the same about ANDM (the Amhara component of the EPRDF), some thing which Tefera Walwa opposed stating that the difference between Meles Zenawi’s TPLF and ANDM did not mean the latter was an opposition Trojan horse.
Intimidated and humiliated opponents
Since the vote on 23 May, the prime minister has threatened everyone who dared to criticize the conditions and results of the general election. In his view, the warning is equally valid for the opposition leaders and for European Union observers. The African Union observers as usual had nothing to report on the elections they observe. Anyone considering calling for the vote to be invalidated was warned that he risks imprisonment. But on the other hand, Meles is fully aware that the non-re-election of most of the opposition leaders will give his regime a major problem. Consequently, secret negotiations are underway to give the opposition a handful of seats. EPRDF representatives contacted Merera Gudina to promise him a recount and to be elected to parliament if he distanced himself from the other opponents. He has so far declined this offer. A post in government was similarly promised to Lidetu Ayalew. For his part, fearing arrest, Beyene Petros asked during a Medrek meeting on 24 May that the opposition coalition no contest any election results until they have sufficient evidence of irregularities.
Heading for Asmara
Meles Zenawi will no doubt not leave matters there. He will try to push home his advantage, not only against the legal opposition but also against the various Ethiopian rebel groups that are waging sporadic armed struggle against his regime (OLF, ONLF), backed by Eritrea. That is probably the reason the EPRDF leaders keep insisting at the moment that an Eritrean opposition conference that had been on the cards for years should finally be held in Addis Ababa in July. Their idea is to put the conditions in place as soon as possible that could lead to a future overthrow of President Isaias Afwerki.
If you define election to mean what it means – freely choosing between choices, and tell me that there was an election in Ethiopia on May 23, 2010, you must either be crazy or think I am crazy to believe you. The whole charade, people going to the polls, the choreographed celebration and condemnation of Human rights Watch and “foreign forces” and the craftily worded statements of the election monitors and the “concern” expressed by donor country officials about the uneven playing field, is therefore simply a massive pile of joke on a captive population. The praise profusely showered on the Ethiopian people by the officials of donor countries about holding a peaceful election, as if election day under dictatorships is always a day of violence, is an insulting patronization to people who have been mugged of their basic rights. That there was no violence on Election Day is proof of the level of control by the regime more than anything else and has little to do with the fairness or unfairness of the election. How often do elections under Saddam Hussein, Mengistu Hailemariam or Castro turn violent? In fact, a record of some protest may be an indication that there is some level of freedom and free organizing.
That dictators are often delusional is known. At some point they end up believing their own lies. But the willful ignorance of our Western friends is dumbfounding. We all have seen it in broad daylight when the Ethiopian people were herded like cattle and driven to polling places to vote for their tormentors. I am disappointed that the EU-Election observers couldn’t go a little further and blunter on their assessment and call it a piece of crappy joke on democracy. I only hope they will say this in their final report if they are honest. I mean, this doesn’t even deserve any diplomatic lingo and finessing. As to the AU observation group, I can only say that a few trained chimpanzees from the Congo would have produced better reports. These buffoons make me hate that I am an African, frankly. In fact, they show me the reason why Africa finds itself at the tail of human progress on this planet. This election is a violence committed against the Ethiopian people in order to steal their free will and their aspirations to join the community of civilized nations.
Let me share with you a snippet of an email I received a few days ago from an old friend living in Addis Ababa. Read it and tell me if it shows you a people at peace with the election or the regime:
I envy you for not being here and watching this farce my dear. I just came back from the Meles’s victory parade where my blood was boiling all day. …My dear, we are reliving Mengistu’s darkest days. The demonstration today is a picture perfect copy of what Mengistu used to do. I hope you will see the video. It was organized by the kebele and the “Ternnafi” and the government officials before any vote was cast. The only difference is that Meles is now Mengistu. Another difference you see is Meles is standing in a bulletproof glass booth and does not throw blood filled bottles on the stage. This coward does know that the people he gathered there all hate him.
It was on government time and since I have to save my job I had to be there. You see in this country you are forced to celebrate something that even disgusts you. Not only they steal your vote, they make sure they also humiliate and dehumanize you. If that was their intention, they succeeded in doing that to me today. I am burning inside out and don’t exactly know what to do. … Fear is everywhere, even the fear of appearing unhappy about the results of the election….. I hope you people living outside can be our voices. You can at least freely cry on our behalf.”
I know my friend is speaking for many. This flame burning inside millions of people may not be visible to the naked eye, particularly to the casual observer. If history hasn’t stopped to be a lesson, we will soon see it raging in the open. Spin it all you want, there was no election conducted on May 23. It was a ritual held for the coronation of Meles Zenwi’s one man rule. Now that he has began hanging his pictures where Mengistu’s were once hung and even employed Azmaris to sing how handsome he looks (don’t laugh), Meles has fully joined the club of Africa’s legendary delusional dictators. Those who died fighting to get rid of the dergue thinking that they were doing it to bring democracy to their people must be rolling in their graves.
Everything that happened on May 23 and the run up to the day, the five years of intense repression since the May 2005 debacle, is so public and on record for anyone willing to see. If you think Human Rights Watch and other international rights groups have axes to grind because their plan of colonizing Ethiopia is thwarted by Meles Zenawi and Bereket Simon, just have a quick look at the annual Human Rights Reports of the US State Department, the most important friend of Zenawi’s government. It is replete with accounts of gruesome repression, terror, killing and torture, many of which amount to crimes against humanity. I sometimes wonder why our Western friends are often heard condemning Issayas Afeworki of Eritrea for not holding this periodic ritual they call election. It appears that they are accusing him for being honest and refusing to spend millions of dollars for a useless ritual. I am sure he can hold similar elections and get himself easily elected. Look at the difference with Ethiopia now. Why does Meles destroy the lives of thousands of Ethiopians over conflicts with these fake elections and spend millions of dollars that could have been used to feed hungry children only to arrive at the same result as his former idol. Oh, I forgot, our lords of poverty want this shameless ritual to hoodwink their own tax payers to dole out their handouts that perpetuate our dependency on them.
The Facts:
During the run up to the election, Meles has been locking down on all space for the exercise of democracy while at the same time suppressing democratic expressions and oiling his machine of repression with western aid. The lockdown on all civic society and the already feeble institutions that could at least grow into some pillars for democracy were being systematically dismantled one by one through decree after decree. The Civil Societies Law, the so called Anti-terrorism Law, that defined even minor civil disobedience as an act of terror, the draconian press law and the closure of independent newspapers that silenced journalists and sent many of them to exile, the jamming of prodemocracy radio stations including the Voice of America, critical websites, the complete blurring and then merger between the TPLF/EPRDF and the government, the use and establishment of neighborhood party watchers already experimented and pilot tested on the people of Tigrai, Meles Zenawi’s ethnic homeland, for nineteen years etc , were not done for fun. The imprisonment of Birtukan Mideksa, the Chairwoman of UDJ and a rising young political star was not because she broke any law? She has to get out of the way and suffer so that Meles and his cronies get their way. All of this was done for 99% control and 99% result.
According to sources from inside the government, the order was given out to local authorities that they will lose their livelihood if any opposition wins and that they will be rewarded if they deliver victory. Cadres worked their butts off, killing and imprisoning political opponents when they can, chasing opposition election observers, filling out voting cards and stuffing them, telling a terrorized people that it was easy to find out who they voted for from finger prints and hidden cameras in voting booths and that they will be a heavy price to pay latter if they vote for any opposition. If this is not a mafia like muggery then tell me what it is.
The 99.6% Surprise:
Many people seem to be surprised about the 99.6% “victory” margin. Some may have believed the well oiled repressive machine Meles Zenawi built was not as extensive. But many are surprised that Meles, the clever politician they know, failed to donate some “votes” to the opposition to make the ritual look like there was an election. Meles is a coward person even by standards of other dictators, as many of his former comrades testify. A slight opening of the door for democratic election five years ago has scared the living daylight out of him. That is one reason he chose calculated a zero risk and came up with this embarrassing result.
The surprise over the 99.6% margin also comes from some level of ignorance. This farce is not the only 90+% achieved by the regime. According to researchers, over the last five years Meles has purged the leadership of the national defense forces of all other ethnic groups and put 95% of it under the leadership of loyal members of his own ethnic party. For the first time since Emperor Menilik, there is no a single Oromo, holding a single key position in the national army. Of 61 key military positions identified by the researchers, 58 are from Meles Zenawi’s ethnic party. Now, that would be surprising. It is even more surprising when you think that the Oromo are the largest ethnic group in Ethiopia that provide nearly 90+% of the export earnings and most of the food produced in the country. Researchers have also found out that some 90+% of the chiefs of the Ministry of National Security (the spy agency) are people from Meles Zenawi’s loyal ethnic clique? We are now told that 99% of young people who are allowed to attend graduate studies are members of the party, many recruited outside of their will. With the requirement for higher education becoming membership to Zenawi’s party and preference for government employment being given to party members, 99% of people with graduate degree in the country and all civil servants will soon be members of Zenawi’s party. These things should surprise all descent people much more than the 99.6% “vote margin.
What is perhaps even more surprising is this endless ritual of election observers and officials of the donor countries, the enablers of the suffering of the millions, issuing carefully worded reports and statements telling us that they are “concerned’ about the undemocratic practices, but that they love us and our country so much that they will continue to extend their helping hand. This is what the EU Chief foreign officer Anita Ashton did minutes after the she was told that her election observers have issued a preliminary report that angered Meles Zenawi. Her disregard for the facts and the speed with which she swung to whitewash the mild criticism was an expression of her bigotry towards Africans. She was actually saying, “You are Africans and the ritual is enough for you”.
The Net results:
Nearly everybody including Meles has lost this election. Peaceniks like me and many Ethiopians who have been sitting on the fences have also lost the argument that there is hope in democratizing Ethiopia though a peaceful process. In a perverse way they have made it easier on all of us now. The unnecessarily fragmented Ethiopian opposition should cease this opportunity to rethink its tactics and strategies, find its voice, and mount a vigorous common resistance to this inhuman system. Will the donors of Meles Zenawi who oil his machine of repression continue to help him after fully knowing that they are accomplices in the crimes being committed against an entire people? We will see. If history is any lesson they would. But they will soon see that they have achieved neither democracy nor stability in that part of the region. They will have a smaller mouth to open against a people who are left with the devils alternatives. Meles Zenawi and the house of cards he is built has peaked and can go nowhere but downhill from here on.
Meles and gang are committing such crimes with impunity. Some times they are even rewarded by the World Bank and others. The U.S. Government alone gives Meles over a billion dollars per year. Most of this money goes to buy weapons that are used to oppress and brutalize the people of Ethiopia.
ADDIS ABABA (IRIN) – After harvesting just 50kg of grain last year from his tiny plot in an arid corner of Ethiopia’s Amhara region, Asmenaw Keflegn knew he would have to ask for help. But when the 44-year-old member of the opposition All Ethiopia Unity Party asked his village chairman to put him on a list of those eligible for emergency food aid from foreign donors, he was refused. The chairman told him, “Let the party that you belong to give you aid.”
Prime Minister Genocidal dictator Meles Zenawi’s ruling Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) and its allies won 545 out of 547 seats in the parliament in May elections, amid opposition charges – dismissed by the government – that it employed a broad-based campaign of harassment, intimidation and coercion, including the systematic denial of food aid to opposition supporters. Despite annual economic growth of over 7 percent in the past five years, about 13 million Ethiopians – nearly one-sixth of the population – receive some form of foreign aid.
The ruling party vigorously denied the reports and said the opposition was fabricating such evidence to discredit the elections and undermine the government. The accusations are “outrageous and stupid”, Meles told reporters. “There is no such system. There will never be such a system.”
“The government at this level of development doesn’t need any coercive measures [in order] to be elected,” says Bereket Simon, Minister of Communication Affairs. “Regarding governance, regarding social development, the people of Ethiopia know for sure the future of Ethiopia lies with this government and so we have no need to compete in an undemocratic way.”
However, a March report from New York-based Human Rights Watch, A Hundred Ways of Putting Pressure, states that government services, including food aid distributions, are “tools used to discourage opposition to government policies, deny the opposition political space, and punish those who do not follow the party line”.
Food for votes
In the district of Tembien in northern Ethiopia’s Tigray region, Seeye Abreha, a losing candidate from the opposition Unity for Democracy and Justice (UDJ) party of jailed opposition leader Birtukan Mideksa, said the two main donor-funded relief programmes were manipulated by the ruling party before the election.
From 17 May, farmers who were owed three months of relief payments under the Productive Safety Net Program, a western-funded food-for-work scheme, were given one month’s payment and told by local government officials they would receive the remainder after the election “provided they let down Seeye and vote for the EPRDF candidate”, says Seeye, a former minister of defence under Meles.
“Emergency food aid and Safety Net were very much employed as a tool for influencing the result of the election,” he added. “I am not against the distribution of food aid because there are a lot of people who need it very badly. My point is that the food provision should be independent of politics.”
Donors say they have no evidence to prove their aid has been used as a campaign tool. The US, which gave Ethiopia US$937 million in aid last year, sent a team to southern Ethiopia accompanied by government officials in December to investigate the allegations. US efforts have found “no evidence that food aid is being denied to supporters of the opposition”, wrote Alyson Grunder, a spokeswoman for the US embassy, in an e-mail to IRIN.
A team led by the World Bank analyzed data on aid distortion from the PSNP and found no widespread pattern of aid misuse, said Kenichi Ohashi, the World Bank’s country director for Ethiopia.
Paying the price
Noting that Ethiopia is a major ally in western counter-terrorism efforts in Somalia and one of the largest aid recipients on the African continent, rights groups and opposition leaders suggest such investigations have been half-hearted.
“When all of their development programmes are being administered by the Ethiopian government, there is a structural incentive to underplay the human rights situation and to believe what the Ethiopian government tells them,” says Ben Rawlence, an HRW researcher. “This becomes a particularly difficult and embarrassing contradiction when faced with a more than 90 percent election victory.”
“The US can launch an investigation and it may work if it’s done independently, but if it goes around accompanied by government officials it’s not going to find out anything,” says Hailu Araaya, a leader of the UDJ opposition party.
The Bank’s Ohashi says donor efforts to investigate the issue have not been designed to uncover such problems. “These mechanisms are essentially not able to catch the kinds of things Human Rights Watch alleged to be happening,” he said. “Unless you go and do some undercover investigation you’re not likely to find it.”
In December, the government detained seven farmers from northern Ethiopia who travelled to the capital Addis Ababa to testify about aid politicization to foreign donors and human rights groups.
Rawlence was expelled from the country, and a foreign journalist who later travelled to northern Ethiopia to meet the farmers was detained for two days and threatened with expulsion, according to HRW.
The government has criticized HRW for what it views as the organization’s flawed methodology in reporting about human rights violations in Ethiopia. “Basically it is the same old junk,” says Bereket. “It has nothing to do with human rights or any discrimination or intimidation whatsoever. It’s a report that intends to punish the image of Ethiopia and try if possible to derail the peaceful and democratic election process.”
Protests
But opposition supporters in the countryside say the denial of food aid has proven to be a potent political weapon in a famine-prone country. Yimer Ahmed, 45, an opposition candidate for the regional council in the central Amhara region, said his wife recently divorced him because his membership of an opposition party had kept their family from receiving US food aid.
“Because life is hard, people are saying that being a member of the opposition will invite hunger,” he says. “This aid is coming through the government and without this aid they will starve, so they don’t want to have any problems with the government.”
EDITOR’S NOTE: This is business as usual. Woyanne conducts unfair elections, arrests and murders opposition members, jams radio programs, blocks access to web sites… and as a reward it gets $100 million from the poverty-monger organization.
ADDIS ABABA (APA) The Ethiopian government Woyanne and the World Bank on Thursday signed in Addis Ababa a $100 million loan agreement to support road construction projects in the country to continue oppressing and tormenting the people of Ethiopia.
According to the agreement, the money will be utilized for the government’s 10-year road construction development projects. Ethiopia is currently undertaking a multi-billion dollar road construction throughout the country since the past five years.
Thursday’s loan agreement is expected to help Ethiopia to finalize all ongoing road projects in the country, according to Ahmed Shidena, the Ethiopian Minister of State for Finance and Economic Development.
He said that the government was undertaking various road construction projects to expand the country’s road network, which said was in a poor state in the past few years.
