US State Department Report on Human Rights in Ethiopia
(1995)
ETHIOPIA
After a lengthy civil war, the Ethiopian People’s
Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF)
took power in 1991 and, together with other groups active in the
anti-Mengistu struggle, adopted
the National Charter which established the Transitional
Government of Ethiopia (TGE). The TGE,
headed by President Meles Zenawi, has been responsible for
overseeing the transition to
multiparty democracy. The Council of Representatives, the interim
quasi-legislature, is controlled
by the four constituent parties of the EPRDF. The EPRDF and by
extension the TGE are
dominated by the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF). The
ascendance of Tigrayans and a
policy of promoting ethnic identity and regionalism have
engendered animosity from Amharas,
who have traditionally held centralized power in Ethiopia.
The Government was consistent and forceful in its verbal
commitment to respect human rights,
but serious problems remain. The judicial system remains weak,
understaffed, and at times
subject to political influence. There were credible reports that
members of the security forces
committed a number of extrajudicial killings and beat or otherwise
physically abused criminal
suspects and detainees, although these practices do not appear to
be widespread. The
Government seldom tried, convicted, and appropriately punished
security force members and
police who committed such abuses. The Government harassed and
detained without charge
numerous journalists and a number of opposition party members,
holding some for as long as
several months. In September the authorities arrested
approximately 500 members of the All-
Amhara People’s Organization (AAPO) on charges of unlawful
assembly. Numerous reports
alleged that EPRDF forces, opposition separatists, and Islamic
militias all committed humanitarian
violations, including the summary execution of civilians, in
continued clashes in the eastern parts of
the country. The TGE’s sometimes heavyhanded tactics and an
opposition boycott ensured an
EPRDF victory in the June Constituent Assembly elections.
Discrimination and violence against
women and abuse of children continued to be serious problems.
However, the Government took a number of steps to improve its
human rights practices. It
released several thousand persons previously detained without
charge and closed the camps in
which they were confined. It undertook efforts to establish a
nonpolitical and nationally
representative military. In June the Government conducted a
procedurally fair election in which
opposition groups were allowed access to government-owned
broadcast media, and on several
occasions opposition groups staged rallies without interference.
RESPECT FOR HUMAN RIGHTS
Section 1 Respect for the Integrity of the Person,
Including Freedom
from:
a. Political and Other Extrajudicial Killing
According to informed sources, local and regional officials of
the security services
committed more than 20 extrajudicial killings in 1994. In at
least one case thought
to be politically motivated, in August government security officers
assassinated the deputy mayor
of Gode. According to credible reports, in July EPRDF soldiers
fired at five unarmed young men
in Debre Zeit, killing two and wounding two others. At year’s end,
the Government had not begun
a public investigation of either of these incidents or punished those
responsible.
In July Alebatchew Goji died under suspicious
circumstances while in police
custody in the town of Orghessa, near Dessie. While the
exact circumstances of his
death were unknown, Alebatchew had been detained and
interrogated for 6 days about his fugitive
uncle’s whereabouts. After Alebatchew’s death, the police
displayed his body in public before
instructing his father to retrieve the body for burial. There is no
evidence that government
authorities investigated this incident.
There were numerous unconfirmed reports of summary executions
of civilians by government
and antigovernment forces during clashes in the eastern “Somali”
region which includes the
Ogaden. Groups involved in these clashes include the EPRDF, the
Ogaden National Liberation
Front (ONLF), and the Islamic fundamentalist group “Al-Ittihad Al-
Islami.” There was no
evidence to support occasional rumors of “killing squads.”
b. Disappearance
The independent press published numerous accounts of
alleged disappearances throughout
the year. In moost cases, security forces arrested and held these
persons incommunicado for
several weeks before evenutally releasing them without charge. For
example, after the OLF
abducted and held a British CARE international employee for a
week, an Ethiopian CARE
employee subsequently disappeared. Despite repeated denials that
he was in police custody, the
local EPRDF office released him 6 days later.
However, there was at least one unconfirmed report in which the
whereabouts of a person
allegedly last seen in police custody was unknown at year’s end.
According to international
human rights groups, in May unidentified security forces
reportedly picked up Mustafa Idris, a
telecommunications worker and OLF supporter, in Addis Ababa.
Previously detained by the
Mengistu regime for 10 years, Mustafa had not been traced to any
police station, and his
whereabouts were unknown.
Human rights groups continued to charge that the whereabouts of
dozens of people the TGE
arrested when it took power remained unknown. In response, the
TGE claimed that some of the
alleged missing were among the estimated 1,700 persons in
detention awaiting trial for crimes
committed against the civilian population during the Mengistu
regime.
c. Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment
or Punishment
The National Charter and new Constitution prohibit the use of
torture and mistreatment.
Nevertheless, there were credible reports that security officials
sometimes beat and otherwise
mistreated detainees. However, instances of torture were rare. A
reported form of mistreatment
is tying a victim’s upper arms behind his or her back with electrical
wire, occasionally resulting in
permanent damage to the limbs. According to some victims and
one security official, mock
executions are occasionally staged. In August EPRDF security
officials took an opposition
supporter to an unmarked house in Addis Ababa and beat and
verbally insulted him for several
hours. The victim was eventually taken to a police station. Police
officers refused an instruction
from the EPRDF officials to imprison the victim and then offered to
take the victim to a hospital.
The Government did not publicly investigate or punish those
responsible.
There were credible reports that EPRDF officials sometimes use
unmarked homes as sites for
the temporary detention and interrogation of political opponents.
However, there is no evidence to
support allegations about the existence of a network of secret
detention or interrogation facilities.
The Government has agreed to allow international access to any
area or facility suspected of
being used in this manner.
In September prison officials shaved the heads of more than 250
supporters of the AAPO who
had been detained on September 20 for assembling without a
permit. None of the detainees had
yet been charged with a crime, and it appeared that the act was
designed to humiliate and
intimidate the AAPO supporters (see Section 1.e.).
The Government took steps to improve prison conditions.
Although prison conditions are
acceptable by local standards and are not life-threatening,
overcrowding is a serious problem.
Prisoners are often allocated less than 2 square meters of space in a
room which may contain
from 8 to 200 people. Prisoners typically receive adequate food,
often supplied by relatives on the
outside. Female prisoners are kept separately from men and receive
generally equal treatment.
Rape does not appear to be a problem in prisons.
d. Arbitrary Arrest, Detention, or Exile
The National Charter, the new Constitution, and both the
Criminal and Civil Codes prohibit
arbitrary arrest and detention. Under the Criminal Procedure Code,
any person detained must be
charged and informed of the charges within 48 hours and, in most
cases, be offered release on
bail. Those persons believed to have committed capital offenses,
such as murder and treason,
may be detained for 4 weeks while police conduct an investigation
and for an additional 15 days
while the prosecutor prepares the case against the suspect. In
practice, people are often detained
without a warrant, frequently not charged within 48 hours, and if
released on bail, never recalled
to court.
Throughout 1994 the Government continued to arrest and detain
persons without charge.
Although most often it detained people for short periods only,
thousands of criminal suspects
remained in detention without charge or trial at year’s end. Many of
these cases result from a
severe shortage of judges, prosecutors, attorneys, clerks, and
courthouses. The Southern Regional
Supreme Court has only 5 judges, out of an authorized complement
of 15. Late in the year, the
Southern Region had a backlog of more than 5,000 cases dating
back as far as 1991. The TGE
began to address these problems by creating special judicial teams
to reduce backlogs in key
areas, which resulted in the release or arraignment of hundreds of
detainees in Region 4. In
December a special team of judicial officials reviewed prisoner files
and released 220 detainees in
the Southern People’s Region, typically for lack of evidence.
In August local police detained 46 supporters of the newly formed
Ethiopian National
Democratic Party (ENDP) in Awassa and Dilla in the southern
region, allegedly for planning
violent activities and possession of unregistered firearms. The
authorities eventually released all
but two of the ENDP members (nine not until early December) for
lack of evidence. In a
separate incident, the TGE detained the president of Region 5
(Somali), Hassan Jiri, in Gode and
Addis Ababa without charge for 55 days in connection with his
refusal to step down. On
September 11, Lemma Sidamo, acting vice-chairman of the Sidamo
Liberation Movement, which
the TGE accuses of engaging in armed insurrection, was removed
from his residence by Addis
Ababa police, acting on an arrest order from Sidamo Zone. No
charges were ever brought
against Lemma, who was held in seclusion in Awassa and the town
of Yerga Alem until his
release in mid-November. In December 1993, the authorities
arrested eight leaders of opposition
parties when they arrived in Addis Ababa to attend a “peace and
reconciliation conference”
organized by political opposition groups. They charged seven with
supporting armed uprising
against the State and other related offenses but dropped charges in
February after the group
members signed individual statements renouncing violence. All of
the detainees had been released
by mid-February, except for Abera Yemane-Ab, who remains in
detention on suspicion of
involvement in crimes against humanity committed during the
Mengistu regime (see Section 1.e.).
Exile is illegal and not used as a means of political control.
However, in May, at the behest of
the Eritrean Government, the TGE arrested 26 Ethiopians for alleged
involvement in activities of
the Eritrean Liberation Front-Revolutionary Command (ELF-RC), a
group opposing the Eritrean
Government. As an alternative to imprisonment or deportation to
Eritrea, the Government
permitted several of the ELF-RC members to seek asylum in Europe
and allowed the others to
remain in internal exile in southern Ethiopia.
e. Denial of Fair Public Trial
The TGE continued to restructure the judiciary toward a
decentralized federal system,
featuring courts at the district (woreda), zone, and regional levels.
The Central (federal) Supreme
Court adjudicates cases involving federal law, transregional issues,
and national security and hears
both original and appeal cases. While the goal of a decentralized
system may hold promise of
bringing justice closer to the people, the reality is that the severe
shortage of trained personnel in
many regions, serious financial constraints, and the absence of a
clear demarcation between
central and regional jurisdictions combine to keep the judiciary
weak.
Senior judicial officers acknowledge government pressure, noting
that judges are sometimes
instructed to treat EPRDF defendants leniently. Anecdotal
evidence suggests that the exact
opposite is true for cases involving members of the opposition. At
least one judge claimed he was
fired for exhibiting too much independence, and in another case a
presiding high judge replaced
one of two fellow judges to achieve a majority vote to deny bail to
two AAPO detainees. At
year’s end, two regional judges remained in prison in the southern
city of Jinka after being illegally
dismissed by local authorities for issuing an unpopular decision.
Officials in Jinka claimed,
incorrectly, that regionalization gives them complete autonomy
over local affairs, and they ignored
release orders from the chairman of the Southern Region Supreme
Court and from the vice
chairman of the regional council.
In decentralizing the judiciary, the TGE also established in 1993
federal and regional Judicial
Administrative Commissions (JAC’s) which are empowered to help
select and discipline judges.
JAC’s–which include the chairman of the relevant supreme court,
representatives of the
appropriate legislative council, local lawyers, prosecutors, and
Justice Ministry officials–have
begun to function, although their impact was mixed.
On October 25, the Special Prosecutor’s Office (SPO) handed
down long-awaited indictments
against the first group of defendants to be tried for serious crimes,
including for crimes against
humanity during the “Red Terror” and forced resettlement and
villagization, committed during the
Mengistu dictatorship from 1974 to 1991. The SPO was established
in 1992 to create an historical
record of the abuses during the Mengistu government and to bring
to justice those criminally
responsible for human rights violations and corruption. The trial of
the first 66 defendants began
on December 13. In this first group, the Government is trying 21 of
the 66 in absentia, including
the former president, Colonel Mengistu Haile Mariam, who is in
exile in Zimbabwe. It may
eventually charge and try more than 3,000 defendants in
connection with these crimes; some
government officials expect the trials to go on for 3 to 5 years. In
1994 the Government arrested
25 former Air Force personnel for having bombed civilian targets
during the civil war. Over 1,600
suspects remained in detention without charge at year’s end, some
of whom have been detained
for more than 3 years. The Government declared that the remaining
detainees would be charged
by July 1995.
Following a high profile trial, the Central High Court convicted and
sentenced AAPO leader
Asrat Woldeyes and four accomplices to imprisonment for 2 years
for involvement in a 1993
meeting in Addis Ababa during which plans for armed activities
against the TGE were allegedly
discussed. In December the same court sentenced Asrat to prison
for an additional 3 years for
“incitement to war” in connection with a speech made at the
provincial town of Debre Berhan in
1992. At year’s end, Asrat also faced charges of involvement in a
May 1994 prison break in
Debre Berhan, during which several guards were killed. His
confinement and trials received
significant press attention and exacerbated tensions between the
TGE and AAPO. In September,
after protesting without a required permit outside the Central High
Court, the authorities arrested
approximately 500 AAPO supporters and eventually charged 250
with “public provocation” and
“illegal assembly.” They subsequently released all of these on bail;
further court action remained
pending at year’s end.
f. Arbitrary Interference with Privacy, Family, Home, or
Correspondence
The law requires judicial search warrants, but government
critics allege they are seldom
used in practice. The TGE implemented a nationwide campaign to
uncover and confiscate
unregistered firearms. Government security officials conducted
searches of private and
commercial vehicles, as well as private homes. Leaders of political
opposition groups claim their
members have been singled out for illegal searches and often
unfairly detained during this
campaign. These charges were given additional credibility when 44
of 46 ENDP members,
detained following accusations of illegal weapons possession in
the Southern Ethiopian People’s
Region, were subsequently released without charge (see Section
1.d.). Many people allege they
are under surveillance for expressing antigovernment views.
Section 2 Respect for Civil Liberties, Including:
a. Freedom of Speech and Press
While the National Charter, the 1992 Press Law, and the new
Constitution provide for the
right to free speech and press, the TGE restricted both of these
freedoms on numerous
occasions. People are generally free to discuss publicly any topic
they choose, but those
expressing anti-TGE views were vulnerable to government
harassment. For example, police
detained a person overnight for speaking about Asrat’s case (see
Section 1.e.) and forced him to
sign a statement forswearing any future discussion of the
professor. Press criticism of both the
Government and the opposition is common. Opposition parties and
the Ethiopian Human Rights
Council (EHRCO) were generally able to hold rallies or press
conferences expressing anti-TGE
views without apparent retribution.
The vast majority of Ethiopians outside Addis Ababa have no
ready access to the print media. A
small-circulation private press continued to operate in Addis
Ababa despite the arrest of more than
a dozen journalists for violations of the Press Law and Criminal
Code. The Press Law is vague,
and many journalists complain that it can be interpreted broadly to
target journalists whom the
Government dislikes. This often results in self-censorship. The
clause most commonly invoked is
the prohibition on dissemination of false information, which is often
translated into “telling only one
side of a story.” Many journalists fall victim to this clause because
of the refusal of virtually all
government officials to speak to the private press, even to confirm
or deny an allegation. Denial
of entrance to private journalists at government press conferences
further limits their access to
information and undermines the TGE’s affirmations of a free press
as a cornerstone of
democracy. However, some elements of the private press were
irresponsible in their reporting of
developments in the country.
The authorities detained a number of independent journalists and
editors for long periods (as long
as 4 months) without informing them of the charges they face.
Many publishers decided against
continuing involvement in the news business after being detained,
sentenced to prison, or fined up
to $3,200 (20,000 birr). There were credible allegations of executive
influence in judicial
proceedings against journalists. Judges set fines on an ad hoc
basis. When a convicted person is
unable to pay a fine, it is a common long-standing practice to divide
his monthly salary into the
outstanding fine to determine the number of months in prison. On
three occasions judges applied
this practice to detained journalists. As a result of poor
management, market forces, and
government harassment, the number of available newspapers
declined from the high of 65 that
were in operation at various times during 1993. By the end of 1994
there were about 20 weekly
and 2 monthly magazines in circulation in Addis Ababa with a
circulation of about 5,000 to 7,000
each.
Foreign journalists, including from the Voice of America,
continued to operate freely in Ethiopia
during this period, often writing articles critical of TGE policies and
practices. The Government
controls radio, the most influential medium in reaching the rural
population, as well as the sole
television station, and ensures that TGE policies are reflected in
their programming. The official
media devoted slightly more coverage to the activities of
opposition groups than in 1993, but much
of this coverage was negative.
The new Constitution provides for academic freedom. In January
1993, security forces killed an
Addis Ababa University (AAU) student while dispersing an
unauthorized demonstration against
Eritrean independence at the University, in which protesters threw
rocks at police. In February
1994, a commission of inquiry, which had been established to
investigate the incident, found that
the students, university security, and police were each partly to
blame.
At year’s end, none of the 41 AAU faculty members dismissed in
April 1993, reportedly for
expressing antigovernment views, had been reinstated. Only 4 of
the 41 received any type of
compensation from the Government, and the teachers’ suit against
the Government for wrongful
dismissal continued to move slowly through the courts. The
negative impact of the dismissals
continued to resonate among AAU faculty.
Credible reports from many sources demonstrate that the
authorities at both the national and
regional levels harassed opposition political parties. The
authorities often refused to rent meeting
halls to opposition parties, surveilled party activities, and harassed
individual members. A member
of the Ethiopian Democratic Union Party (EDUP) was detained and
beaten severely by two
EPRDF officials in Addis Ababa for several hours after they
discovered his EDUP membership
card while interrogating him and a friend on the street. Two
officials of the opposition Southern
Ethiopian People’s Democratic Coalition (SEPDC) were allegedly
summarily detained on
December 28 after presenting local authorities in the town of
Hosanna a written notification of
SEPDC’s intention to establish a party office. In August police
detained 46 supporters of the
newly formed ENDP in Awassa and Dilla in what many suspect was
an attempt by southern
region authorities to dismantle the party (see Section 1.d.).