Global efforts to combat terrorism and the pressure to implement democratic reforms have collided in Ethiopia in recent years. The contradictions and challenges in these objectives became even more apparent after the country ’s flawed 2005 elections and a violent crackdown by Ethiopian security forces. In addition, sizable Ethiopian diaspora communities in the United States and Europe have changed the dynamics of international engagement, both in the elections themselves and in post-election disputes. Domestic pressure groups, concerned governments, human rights organizations, and Ethiopians abroad exerted strong pressure on international donors to end or limit funding of the regime. Meanwhile the Ethiopian government exercised significant regional influence by invading Somalia in December 2006. At the same time it burnished its image as an important ally in Washington’s war on terrorism.
Prime Minister Meles Zenawi and his party, the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF), have deftly manipulated internal and external threats. At various times regional involvements in Somalia and Eritrea have provided useful distraction from deteriorating domestic politics and human rights violations by state security. More than two years later, the contested election of May 2005 and the even more contentious post-election standoff between the ruling party and opposition parties remain pivotal to understanding both Ethiopia’s internal political situation and other important conflicts in the region, particularly in Somalia.
Approaching the third round of multiparty elections in spring 2005, analysts were guardedly optimistic that these elections would advance the democratic process the country had undertaken in the fifteen years since the Derg military dictatorship fell. Yet the election results caught political analysts and many Ethiopians off-guard, not only because of the surprisingly strong showing of opposition political parties, but also because of the rapid descent into violence and political division that followed a peaceful and well-attended voting day. Since then both domestic and regional politics have deteriorated, and regional conflict and authoritarian governance have increased.
The elections suggest that sharp divisions among political elites in Ethiopia and among the various ethnic and regional communities have been salient since at least 1991, when the Derg fell. Under the ruling party rural voters have made small but significant economic and sociocultural gains (such as autonomy for ethnic groups in language choice). Material improvements in social services and rural infrastructure have surpassed those of previous regimes in modern Ethiopian history. At the same time local government authorities and institutions have become increasingly repressive, particularly in the countryside.
The urban populace is divided and extremely hostile to the regime in power. Advances in the cities and towns, while impressive, have failed to keep pace with the expectations of a restive and politically engaged voting population. Finally, much of the sizable and politically active Ethiopian diaspora is extremely hostile to the prime minister and the EPRDF leadership. It aggressively seeks to undermine the regime through public rallies in western capitals and new technologies such as the Internet.
In many ways these three communities—urban, rural, and diaspora—have such divergent interests that no one political party could hope to appease them all. The EPRDF certainly has not managed to. Its primary base of support outside the Tigray region comes from rural areas, particularly those that have been historically excluded and least developed.
It has shown itself willing to use lethal force, belying the rhetoric of democracy that distinguished it from previous regimes. Since the disputed 2005 elections and a brutal crackdown by the ruling party ’s security forces, opposition political parties have fragmented, unable to maintain a coalition that might effectively challenge the EPRDF under current electoral and institutional structures. Some of the largest ethnic communities, particularly the Oromo and Somali, have little if any political representation and are subject to regular and violent human rights abuses. Finally, insecurity throughout the Horn of Africa, and Ethiopia’s role as both instigator of instability and regional enforcer, puts it at the center of a rapidly developing regional crisis… – continue reading [click here]
NAIROBI — Three Ethiopian journalists who had been held for almost two years in an Addis Ababa prison said that days after being cleared of all charges and released this spring, they each received death threats from government security agents.
In lengthy interviews here in the Kenyan capital, the journalists also described being subjected to psychological torture during their confinement with other political prisoners in a stifling cell on the outskirts of the Ethiopian capital. They said that after their release they had had high hopes of starting a new life, but government agents almost immediately began hounding them, harassing them with phone calls and otherwise terrorizing them into fleeing their country for Kenya.
“They told me, ‘We will kill you if you do not disappear,’ ” said one of the newspaper journalists, all of whom spoke anonymously on the advice of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. “I was sure I would be killed if I stayed.”
A spokesman for the Ethiopian government declined to comment on the allegations.
The government of Prime Minister Meles Zenawi has often dealt brutally with people deemed threatening to his fragile ruling coalition. In the capital, people suspected of supporting opposition groups routinely disappear from their neighborhoods, according to the Ethiopian Human Rights Council, a pro-democracy group based in Addis Ababa.
Elsewhere, the government is conducting brutal campaigns against rebels and opposition movements in the Ogaden and Oromia regions, where the council and reporters have documented widespread extrajudicial killings, illegal detentions and torture.
The journalists were among thousands of people, including the country’s top opposition leaders, who were arrested in the capital during protests following Ethiopia’s 2005 elections, in which the opposition made significant gains.
Some Ethiopians had held out hope that the release in April of the journalists and others — and especially the subsequent pardon and release of the country’s top opposition leaders last month — marked a turning point for the Ethiopian government.
The U.S. State Department, which considers Ethiopia a key ally in fighting terrorism in the Horn of Africa, had praised the prisoners’ release as a “breakthrough.”
“We commend the government of Prime Minister Meles Zenawi for its statesmanship in resolving this issue,” the department said in a statement. “The United States calls on all parties to use this breakthrough as the basis to advance dialogue on peace and democratic progress.”
The journalists said their release had seemed miraculous, coming after nearly two years of confinement in the dingy Kaliti prison, where conditions are supposed to be superior to other jails around Ethiopia.
They said they were held in a room riddled with bullet holes and crowded with about 400 other inmates, many suffering from tuberculosis and other illnesses. The room had one toilet.
The journalists estimated that perhaps 85 percent of the inmates were political prisoners from Oromia.
“There was a 90-year-old man and an 86-year-old man,” said one journalist. “One had been there for 12 years, the other for eight years, and they were still waiting for a trial. The 86-year-old had scars all over his body from being beaten. If you heard their story, you would not think you are living in the 21st century.”
One of the journalists said he was beaten on the head and face with an iron rod when he was first arrested in 2005. Otherwise, the journalists said, they were not tortured, a fact they attribute to the international attention to their case.
But other inmates were routinely tortured, they said. “They would pour water on their back and beat them in front of us,” said one of the journalists. “Every morning, we would hear people screaming and begging for their own death. When we saw them tortured, we were tortured.”
When the journalists were found not guilty and released, they said, they looked forward to resuming some kind of normal life, though the government had shut down their newspapers.
But within two weeks, they were being hounded by government agents, in some cases by men they recognized as those who arrested them in 2005.
One of the journalists said he was constantly followed around the city — to Internet cafes, to his home and once to a bar, where a security agent confronted him.
“He said, ‘If you make a mistake again, we will not put you in prison. We will kill you,’ ” he said, adding that the man put his fingers into the shape of a gun and imitated a shot to the head.
Last month, the men decided independently of one another to leave Ethiopia, having heard that the prosecutor had appealed their acquittal.
They recounted putting on disguises — long robes, big hats — and smuggling themselves by truck and taxi, first to the Kenyan border and finally to Nairobi, where they are under U.N. protection.
They live now in hiding, having heard an unconfirmed report that Ethiopian security forces have come to Nairobi.
“My mind cannot rest,” said one of three men. “I do not feel safe. I always think of my family, that they may inflict some harm on them to harm me.”
The treatment of the released prisoners highlights a challenge for the State Department: reconciling its counterterrorism objectives with its stated goals of promoting democracy and human rights abroad.
The United States backed Ethiopia’s invasion of Somalia last year to oust an Islamic movement that had taken hold there, and it cooperated closely with Ethiopia in conducting three airstrikes against Islamic fighters.
A bill critical of Ethiopia’s human rights record is currently stalled in Congress because House leaders have said they feel the Ethiopian government should be given time to arrange for the release of other political prisoners still in jail, a strategy that the journalists consider doomed.
“You hear all this condemnation of Mugabe,” said one, referring to Zimbabwe’s president, Robert Mugabe. “Meles is much worse. He is killing freely. America should change this partnership with Ethiopia on terrorism. It is allowing the Ethiopian government to kill democracy.”
We, the undersigned, as members of Ethiopian human rights organizations, Ethiopian civic organizations and in the Ethiopian religious community, call for immediate action to stop the outrageous human rights abuses going on in the Ogaden region of Ethiopia that is causing wide-scale humanitarian disaster to the civilian population due to the fighting between the Ethiopian regime of Meles Zenawi and the Ogaden National Liberation Forces (ONLF).
We appeal to the Meles regime and the ONLF to call an immediate ceasefire so as to allow all humanitarian organizations, including the International Red Cross, the Ogaden Human Rights organizations and other such groups to gain access to the area in order to help the people who are suffering due to displacement, lack of food, lack of clean water, lack of shelter, lack of medical care and lack of any semblance of normal life necessary to their survival and well being. This crisis is worsening by the moment and will result in many more lives being lost, especially the lives of the most vulnerable — the young and the elders.
We call on those in the international community — the United Nations, the African Union, the United States as a key ally to Ethiopia, the European Union and other concerned entities and citizens to take a stand for the innocent who are dying as a result of this crisis. We call on you and all media to not be silent on this appalling human catastrophe before it worsens. Inaction and apathy will only bring about another example of shame to the international community if the Ogaden becomes another Darfur as good people fail to act with moral conviction, urgency and effectiveness.
To the regime of Meles Zenawi and to the ONLF, we recommend the following actions:
1. agree to comply with an immediate ceasefire, something that requires the total cooperation of both parties if it is going to be effective
2. provide for safe and unrestricted access into the region by all humanitarian groups in order to meet the needs of the civilian population
3. organize a dialogue with the goal of finding a peaceful resolution to this crisis and one that respects the universal human rights of all civilians and compliance with the Ethiopian Constitution and International Law.
Right now, we who are calling for this action have information from the ground on what is going on, but the Meles regime appears to be diverting the attention of both other Ethiopians and of those in the international community away from the tragedy going on in the Ogaden. Meles has called the ONLF a terrorist group, even while the regime is reportedly perpetrating crimes against humanity against the civilian population in the Ogaden and in other regions of the country. The Meles regime may believe that classifying the ONLF as terrorists would open up a means to legitimize the killing of Ogadeni civilians. However, according to representatives from the ONLF, they believe they must defend the Ogadeni people and call on the Meles regime to cease committing human rights atrocities against their people.
This past week, Meles was on Ethiopian television warning Ethiopians to not speak up for the ONLF as they are terrorists and that his government intends to “crack down” on these “terrorists.” He went on to say that those who supported the ONLF would be supporting a terrorist group. Some would say that any support of the EPRDF/TPLF that is responsible for crimes against humanity should be considered a terrorist.
Additionally Meles seemed to want to focus the attention of the international community and Ethiopians inside and outside of the country on the upcoming Ethiopian Millennium celebration as well as to infer that the majority of Ethiopians should be happy that he had released the CUDP leaders and that their minds should be on these things instead of what was going on in the Ogaden.
Instead, Ethiopians should say a loud “NO” and speak out for Ethiopian Ogadenis like we spoke out in protest of the student protesters in Addis Ababa in June and November of 2005 and for the Opposition leaders who were just released.
We speak laud with one voice for our brothers and sisters of the Ogaden as well as for those left in the prisons throughout our country and use the same volume we did for these groups until we all are free! We must continue to rally, protest and advocate for all Ethiopians until the killing, torture, rape, detention and man-made humanitarian crises, causing untold suffering to our people, stop.
We call on the international community and all peace-loving people to stand up, in real life and in practical actions, for the principles you have established based on universal values of humanity and justice.
For additional information, please contact: Mr. Girma Kassa
E-mail: [email protected]
Abugida Info
Addis voice
Anuak Justice Council
Ethiopian Media Forum (EMF)
Ethiopian American Association of Portland
Ethiopian Review
Kaliti Peace Advocacy Group
Network of Ethiopian Scholars Scandinavian Chapter
Ogaden Human Rights Committee
Ogaden Voice for Peace
Ogaden Empowerment Initiatives
Ogaden Youth Network
Peacewithkinijit Blog
Tegbar League
A senior Eritrean minister Saturday criticized U.S. consideration to put his country on a list of state sponsors of terrorism for providing support to Islamist insurgents in Somalia.
U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Jendayi Frazer [who is supporting Meles Zenawi’s war crimes in Somalia] said Friday the U.S. is considering the move, which would impose sanctions on Eritrea.
Eritrean Information Minister Ali Abdu responded by saying his country “would like to thank … Frazer for exposing … her ill will toward the Eritrean people.”
A U.N. report issued last month says Eritrea has shipped large quantities of weapons to Islamist insurgents fighting the Ethiopian-backed Somali government. Eritrean authorities deny the report’s findings. But Frazer called the report “fairly convincing.”
Eritrea and Ethiopia have tense relations stemming from a border dispute.
The U.S. has also ordered Eritrea to close its consulate in California out of concern for the African country’s role in Somalia. Frazer says the U.S. will consider further action if Eritrean behavior does not change.
Washington is also concerned about restrictions placed on the U.S. Embassy in Eritrea’s capital.
The U.S. says Eritrea has refused to grant visas to officials assigned to work at the Asmara embassy.
Some information for this report was provided by AFP and Reuters.
A senior Eritrean minister Saturday criticized U.S. consideration to put his country on a list of state sponsors of terrorism for providing support to Islamist insurgents in Somalia.
U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Jendayi Frazer [who is supporting Meles Zenawi’s war crimes in Somalia] said Friday the U.S. is considering the move, which would impose sanctions on Eritrea.
Eritrean Information Minister Ali Abdu responded by saying his country “would like to thank … Frazer for exposing … her ill will toward the Eritrean people.”
A U.N. report issued last month says Eritrea has shipped large quantities of weapons to Islamist insurgents fighting the Ethiopian-backed Somali government. Eritrean authorities deny the report’s findings. But Frazer called the report “fairly convincing.”
Eritrea and Ethiopia have tense relations stemming from a border dispute.
The U.S. has also ordered Eritrea to close its consulate in California out of concern for the African country’s role in Somalia. Frazer says the U.S. will consider further action if Eritrean behavior does not change.
Washington is also concerned about restrictions placed on the U.S. Embassy in Eritrea’s capital.
The U.S. says Eritrea has refused to grant visas to officials assigned to work at the Asmara embassy.
Some information for this report was provided by AFP and Reuters.
The Ethiopian Woyanne regime’s Ministry of Justice said Saturday the pardon plea of Ato Kifle Tigneh and other 31 members of the Coalition for Unity and Democracy Party (Kinijit) has been approved by EthiopianPresident Meles Zenawi’s puppet Girma Woldegiorgis.
In a statement, the ministry said the prisoners “admitted” [or else rot in jail] that their attempt to change the constitutional system through force was “mistaken.”
It also said the Kinijit members “agreed to discharge their responsibilities through respecting and abiding by constitutionally organized governmental institutions.”
The Kinijit members forwarded their plea for the Woyanne regime Ethiopian government and people to grant them pardon, according to the statement.
They were jailed after post-election violence in 2005 along with 38 senior CUD leaders, who were freed last month.
None of the 32 opposition supporters and members had been charged following their arrests in 2005. Bereket Simon, a Meles adviser, said he did not know why they had been held without charge.
“The government has pardoned them. They can run for office, they can run their political organizations,” Bereket said [with a straight face]. “It is good for Ethiopia because it indicates that the rule of law is respected in Ethiopia.”
U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Jendayi Frazer [who is supporting