Ethiopia’s best-known political prisoner, opposition leader Birtukan Mideksa, is said to be in poor physical and mental health in a jail outside Addis Ababa where she is serving a life sentence. But as Prison authorities have denied visitation requests from friends and colleagues seeking to check on her condition.
A tense confrontation developed outside Kaliti prison Saturday between the facility’s director Abebe Zemichael and a man who was both his former commander and his former prisoner.
Several top officials of Ethiopia’s Unity for Democracy and Justice Party had gone to the prison demanding to see their jailed leader Birtukan Mideksa. Among them, Seye Abraha, a well-known political and military figure who is also a former Kaliti inmate.
Siye says he and prison director Abebe argued over visitation rules.
“The chief of the prison showed up and said it is only blood relatives who are allowed to visit her, we challenged him, as we are ex-prisoners we know family and friends visit relatives in prison,” said Siye.
Siye and the prison chief have a long history. Twenty years ago, Siye was military commander of the rebel Tigray People’s Liberation Front. Abebe was a TPLF guerrilla fighter. After the TPLF seized power in 1991, Siye became Ethiopia’s defense minister in the government led by Prime Minister Meles Zenawi.
But the TPLF split in a bitter 2001 dispute. Siye was on the losing side. After being ousted, he was charged with corruption and imprisoned for six years.
He is now free and campaigning for a seat in parliament.
Siye says UDJ officials went to Kaliti to check reports Birtukan’s physical and mental health have deteriorated during her 15 months behind bars.
“Since the government has blocked any information about Birtukan we do not know what precipitated this problem about her health, so we are asking the government to give her access to an independent medical inquiry,” he added.
Birtukan was among dozens of opposition leaders sentenced to life in prison for their part in violent protests against what they said was vote-rigging by the ruling party in the 2005 parliamentary election. All were subsequently pardoned. But Birtukan was returned to jail and ordered to serve out her term after she refused to apologize for publicly stating she had not asked for the pardon.
Amnesty International describes her as a prisoner of conscience, the U.N. Human Rights Council lists her as a victim of arbitrary detention.
The U.S. State Department calls her a political prisoner, and describes as ‘credible’ reports her mental health is deteriorating.
The 35-year-old single mother and former judge was held in solitary confinement for five months after being re-arrested. Since then, her mother and five-year-old daughter have been the only ones allowed to see her.
In an interview Friday, Almaz Gebregziabher, 74, said her daughter seems mentally sound, though they are not able to talk freely during their twice weekly visits. Speaking through an interpreter, she said Birtukan’s physical health is the greater worry.
“Saturday Birtukan complained that she was sick, and on Sunday she said ‘would you please deliver this message to authorities’, that she was severely sick,” she said. “As soon as Birtukan said she was sick, she was almost in tears, and immediately the female guard that was listening to their conversation interfered and told her to leave the premises.”
Officials flatly deny Birtukan is either physically or mentally ill. At a recent news conference, Prime Minister Meles suggested reports about Birtukan’s condition are politically motivated.
“She may have added a few kilos. That may be for lack of exercise,” said Prime Minister Meles. “Other than that, I understand she is in perfect health. Where are they getting it, these reports? The usual suspects.”
He rejected a reporter’s suggestion that outside doctors, diplomats or journalists be allowed to see Birtukan to verify her condition.
“Birtukan is an ordinary prisoner of law. She will be treated like an ordinary prisoner of law. And we will keep her in prison like every other prisoner. No more rights, no less rights,” added Prime Minister Meles.
Birtukan supporter Siye Abraha counters that if Birtukan is treated like any other prisoner, she should be allowed to see friends and relatives.
Government spokesman Shimelis Kemal this week expressed surprise the issue of Birtukan’s health is being raised. He said if she is sick, she can go to the prison infirmary. If her problems are more serious, she would be referred to a hospital, like every other prisoner.
Shimelis said the timing of the issue suggests it might have less to do with Birtukan’s health and more to do with the next election, which is less than two months away.
ADDIS ABABA, ETHIOPIA — Ethiopian Airlines officials are closely following a report that a captured terrorism suspect has told of a bomb aboard a plane that crashed off the coast of Lebanon in January. Investigators have not determined the cause more than two months after the crash.
A report on a U.S. Internet Web site says British intelligence agents have reopened their investigation into the mysterious crash of an Ethiopian Airlines jet January 25. The Boeing 737 plunged into the Mediterranean Sea minutes after takeoff from Beirut airport, killing all 90 people aboard.
News reports initially quoted witnesses as saying the plane had broken up in the air and fallen into the sea in a ball of flames. But Lebanese officials immediately ruled out terrorism, and suggested pilot error was to blame.
The “G2 Bulletin” Web site, which calls itself an independent online intelligence newsletter reports an operative of the group al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula told interrogators the aircraft was destroyed by a suicide bomber trained in Yemen.
The operative is said to be among more than 100 terrorism suspects recently arrested in Saudi Arabia. He is reported to have told his captors the Beirut bomber trained in the same camp as Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who tried to set off a bomb in his underwear on a plane landing in Detroit on Christmas Day.
Ethiopian Airlines chief Girma Wake has been critical of what he called premature and misleading speculation about the cause of the Beirut crash. In a telephone interview, he cautioned that this latest report must be checked thoroughly. But he said it raises questions about why Lebanese politicians were so quick to rule out foul play and blame pilot error.
“The very fact the Lebanese authorities were saying the aircraft exploded in the air, or when they say there was a trace of fire as it was coming down. All this leads you to check it. I’m not saying that is the cause, but it leads you to check this,” said Girma.
Girma declined to say what he thinks the cause may have been. He said, ‘if you rush to conclusions, they will be the wrong conclusions.’
News reports from Saudi Arabia say the recently arrested terrorism suspects were part of a network of al-Qaida-affiliated radicals that included two suicide bombing cells.
Mahboub Maalim, head of the six-nation East African regional economic group known as IGAD (Intergovernmental Authority on Development), says al-Qaida-linked terror cells in the Arabian Peninsula are working with like-minded groups in the Horn of Africa.
“We’re almost certain in Somalia the group al-Shabab is not a Somali group any more, and we think a lot of other nationalities are there in the name of that cell, the al-Qaida cell, and definitely we feel there is also a link with the group in Yemen,” note Maalim.
A statement from the Saudi interior ministry last week said the recently arrested terrorism suspects were plotting attacks on oil and security installations. Saudi Arabia is the world’s biggest oil exporter.
There has been little speculation about any terrorism motive in connection with the Ethiopian Airlines crash. But experts have noted that the crash occurred almost exactly five years after the assassination of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, after whom Beirut’s airport is named.
A Special Tribunal into the Hariri killing is reported nearing a conclusion that would bring the perpetrators to justice. An earlier United Nations backed probe said it had found evidence implicating senior officials of the Syrian and Lebanese intelligence services.
ADDIS ABABA, ETHIOPIA (Reuters) — U.S. funded-broadcaster Voice of America (VOA) said on Monday that [the Woyanne regime in] Ethiopia may have blocked its website in a move which may lead to further U.S. criticism of its closest ally in the Horn of Africa.
Ethiopia holds national elections on May 23 and international press freedom advocacy groups say the government is intimidating and harassing journalists ahead of the vote. The government Woyanne denies that.
“We have received reports that VOA’s website is unavailable inside Ethiopia, and we are investigating the causes,” VOA Director Danforth Austin said in a statement.
Government Woyanne spokesmen were not immediately available to comment.
Prime Minister Genocidal dictator Meles Zenawi this month accused VOA’s radio service in Ethiopia’s dominant Amharic language of broadcasting “destabilising propaganda” and said his government was testing its ability to jam it.
Meles compared VOA to Radio Mille Collines, whose broadcasts are blamed by many for sparking the 1994 Rwanda genocide. He said he would order the service jammed if testing succeeded.
Residents of the capital, Addis Ababa, told Reuters they had not been able to access the VOA website since early on Sunday.
Rights groups accuse [the Woyanne regime in] Ethiopia of routine Internet censorship.
VOA says listeners in Ethiopia have been unable to hear its Amharic-language broadcasts for more than four weeks.
Meles’ comments were sharply criticised from the U.S. State Department. Ethiopia — reliant on foreign aid — is the key U.S. ally in the Horn of Africa.
VOA launched satellite broadcasts into Ethiopia a few days after Meles’ remarks and said it was exploring other methods of overcoming the jamming.
The broadcaster was set up during World War Two to counter anti-U.S. propaganda and operates in 45 languages.
Analysts expect the Meles government dictatorship to win steal the election. The opposition says that is because the government Woyanne scares people into voting for it. The government Woyanne says the opposition is divided and trying to discredit the poll.
It is a staple of the criminal defense bar to represent thieves, robbers, burglars, muggers, pickpockets, shoplifters, embezzlers, con men, fraudsters and swindlers. It is also the ineluctable lot of the defense lawyer to learn about the M.O. (modus operandi, techniques) of the criminal classes with professional detachment. But few defense lawyers could claim the dubious honor of representing criminals that specialize in election heists. So, when the Carter Center issued its post-mortem “Ethiopia National Elections Observation Mission 2005 Final Report”[1] recently, a unique academic opportunity became available to learn about how an election is actually stolen.
First, a detailed discussion of the specific findings of that Report is unnecessary. Anyone who has followed the May 2005 electoral process and observed the post-election period even with marginal interest is familiar with the facts presented and reviewed in the Report. Second, the diplomatically finessed conclusion of the Report tells the whole story. The 2005 Ethiopian election was stolen in broad daylight:
In spite of the positive pre election developments, the Center’s observation mission concludes that the 2005 electoral process did not fulfill Ethiopia’s obligations to ensure the exercise of political rights and freedoms necessary for genuinely democratic elections.
The real value of the Report lies in its plain depiction of how the 2005 Ethiopian election was stolen. One could say the Report is a sort of manual on the anatomy of election theft. To be sure, the Report effectively shows the “dos and don’ts” of a successful election heist and the specific things one must do in the “pre-election”, “election day” and “post-election” period. Carrying out the perfect election theft, however, is not for the faint of heart. One must have the cunning of a smiling villain, the audacity of a desperado outlaw and the brutality of a back alley thug to successfully steal an election in broad daylight. Above all, the accomplished election thief understands, masters and applies five basic principles.
Principle #1 (The Setup): Pander to your Western donors who bankroll you.
Elections in dictatorships are all about pleasing and trying to hoodwink Western donors, who are themselves all too willing to oblige with a wink and smile. They know elections in dictatorships are always stolen, but need an “election” charade to make plausible denials that they knew the election is stolen. In other words, they need a convenient cover story to shroud their hypocrisy in a garb of moral and intellectual virtue while concealing their criminal complicity in the theft. They pretend to maintain the appearance of neutrality and mediation in public while doing business as usual with the election thieves after dark. The smart election thief understands these basic facts and will do everything to make the donors happy, give them all the diplomatic cover they need and eventually squeeze more cash out of them.
The smart election thief will do just the right symbolic things to please the donors such as opening up “political space” for “competition and dialogue”, making grand pronouncements of “reforms”, giving lip service to open and vigorous electoral campaigns, not overtly interfering with civil society groups and the independent press and so on. It is a big deal for Western donors to see that “international election observers” are on the ground “watching” the “election” (from being stolen?!), and hopefully giving their blessings at the end. Western donors are kind of funny though: They want the local people to believe that an election could be stolen just a little and still be “free and fair.” But the people know that just as there is no such thing as a woman who is a little bit pregnant, there is also no such thing as an election that is a little bit stolen that is “free and fair”.
The Carter Center Report describing the 2005 pre-election period in Ethiopia stated:
The early pre-election period saw indications of growing space for political competition and dialogue. Government leaders, and opposition leaders met face-to-face to discuss the electoral process and needed reforms, with government agreeing to implement some of the key reforms called for by the opposition. International observers were invited and freedom of movement was assured. The Carter Center assessment team found the country’s political conditions conducive for an improved election. Government representatives exhibited openness to constructive criticism, and a willingness to consider recommendations for reforms. The opposition appeared ready to participate in the elections, and civil society was positioned to conduct voter and civic education and to observe the process…
Oh! What about democracy, free and fair elections, the people’s voice and all that good stuff? Not a problem. Western donors know the Ethiopian people are too poor, too hungry and too ignorant to understand or appreciate democracy. It is actually a simple problem of mind over matter: Western donors don’t mind (a stolen election) and the Ethiopian people don’t matter.
Principle #2 (Setting up the Heist): Use lots of smoke and mirrors.
Razzle-dazzle and theatricality are critical props before an election takedown. This requires keeping “the people” and the opposition distracted with all sorts of cute election games and amusements. One of the best election games is called “election code of conduct”. It is similar to a children’s game of marbles in which one player owns all the marbles. The game has only one rule: The guy who writes the “code” always wins the elections. As the election date nears, it is necessary to create hoopla and hype. The Carter Center Report describes:
The pre-election period witnessed unprecedented participation by opposition parties and independent candidates, and an unmatched level of political debate in the state-dominated electronic and print media and at public forums held across the country. Political parties agreed to a Party Code of Conduct, committing themselves to compliance with provisions calling for fair play and supporting peaceful political competition. Ethiopian civil society organizations were active in the pre-election period, observing election preparations and sponsoring a series of televised debates on public policy issues between government officials and opposition leaders.
Principle #3: (The Takedown) Snatch the election, faster than a New York pickpocket.
The smart election thief is lightening fast when it comes to the takedown. He does not wait for election returns, results or tabulations. He does not wait for verification reports and analysis of international observers or resolutions of vote challenges. On election day, he moves swiftly and declares victory before the votes are counted, imposes martial law and runs away with the prize in broad daylight in view of millions of stunned voters who look on in total disbelief. The Carter Center Report describes:
The May 15 voting process progressed relatively smoothly with Carter Center observers reporting that polling was calm and peaceful in the polling stations visited, with only limited incidents of disturbances reported. However, problems began to emerge during the counting and tabulation phases, with significant irregularities and delays in vote tabulation and a large number of electoral complaints. Preliminary but unconfirmed reports of election results from the political parties began to circulate on election night suggesting that the opposition parties had scored significant electoral gains, especially in Addis Ababa and other urban areas. On the night of the election, Prime Minister Meles Zenawi declared a one-month ban on public demonstrations in the capital and brought the Addis Ababa security forces (soon to be under the command of the opposition that won Addis Ababa) under the control of the office of the Prime Minister.
Principle #4 (The Getaway): Run them down if they get in your way!
As in any daylight crime, there may be witnesses. The smart election thief will use “shock and awe” to make a successful getaway. He will use extreme violence to deal with anyone standing in the way of his getaway. He will destroy any evidence of the theft and make it impossible to determine the full magnitude of the crime. He will boldly declare that it is necessary to kill unarmed demonstrators and jail nearly all of the opposition leaders to save democracy!
It’s very obvious now that the opposition tried to change the outcome of the election by unconstitutional means. We felt we had to clamp down. We detained them and we took them to court. In the process, many people died, including policemen. Many of our friends feel that we overreacted. We feel we did not. There is room for criticism nevertheless it does not change the fact that this process was a forward move towards democracy and not a reversal. Recent developments have simply reinforced that. The leaders of the opposition have realized they made a mistake. And they asked for a pardon, and the government has pardoned them all.[2]
The official Inquiry Commission set up to investigate the post-2005 election violence reported[3]:
There was no property destroyed. There was not a single protester who was armed with a gun or a hand grenade as reported by the government-controlled media that some of the protesters were armed with guns and bombs. The shots fired by government forces were not to disperse the crowd of protesters but to kill by targeting the head and chest of the protesters.
Principle #5: Deny, deny, then lie.
The smoothest criminals always deny, deny and lie that they have done anything wrong. It is no different for the smart election thief. In other words, once you get away with the heist, follow the wisdom of the Amharic saying “Ye leba ayne derek meles o leb adrik.” (A boldface thief will tax your patience by persistent denial.) Deny having stolen the election. Distract attention from oneself by pointing an accusatory finger at others and make ridiculous claims about “interhamwe” conspiracies, “blind hatred” and so on. Follow the teachings of Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi propaganda minister: “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.”
As any criminal defense lawyer knows, the criminal perpetrator gains special psychological advantages by following a strategy of denial. The act of denial enables the criminal to shield himself from the shocking reality of his wrongdoing. It also offers him an opportunity to admit a fact but deny the seriousness of the crime (rationalization). In many cases, denial enables the criminal to admit a wrongdoing and its seriousness while avoiding moral responsibility altogether.
Everyone, including the most ardent critics of the government, agrees that right up to election day the democratic elections in Ethiopia were exemplary, by any standard. The issue arises as to whether the counting of the vote was done in a fair and transparent fashion. Here, there are varied assessments. We argue that while there may have been mistakes here and there, on the whole it was a credible and fair count. The opposition did not agree. So we said: ‘Let’s check. Let’s review the counting in the presence of foreign observers.’ We did that. After we did that, two groups of observers the African Union and the Carter Center said that while there had been some mistakes, the outcome of the election was credible.[4]
Principle # 5.5: Go back to Principle #1.
If at first you succeed in stealing an election, steal and steal again! Welcome to Ethiopia Election May 2010!
Whoever said “crime does not pay” has not tried stealing an election! Steal an election and you can steal everything in sight (or out of sight) with impunity, indefinitely!
“The people who cast the votes don’t decide an election, the people who count the votes do.” Joseph Stalin
[1] http://www.ethiomedia.com/course/carter_center_final_report.pdf
[2] http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1659420,00.html
[3] http://www.ethiomedia.com/addfile/ethiopian_inquiry_commission_briefs_congress.html
[4] See footnote 2.
Alemayehu G. Mariam, is a professor of political science at California State University, San Bernardino, and an attorney based in Los Angeles. He writes a regular blog on The Huffington Post, and his commentaries appear regularly on pambazuka.org, allafrica.com, newamericamedia.org and other sites.
ADDIS ABABA (IRIN) – Human traffickers and smugglers in Ethiopia have taken advantage of the upcoming World Cup, duping victims into believing that South Africa has created huge employment opportunities, says a government report, Illegal Migration: Causes, Consequences and Solutions to human trafficking and smuggling in Ethiopia.
Some 20,000 to 25,000 Ethiopians are trafficked to various countries annually, the January report notes. Together with smuggling from Somalia, the business is worth up to US$40 million a year, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM). Traffickers operate in organized groups of eight to 25 in big towns.
“Human traffickers use various tricks, including the deception that South Africa has created employment opportunities,” Zenebu Tadesse, State Minister for Labour and Social Affairs, said.
Speaking at a national conference on human trafficking and smuggling, she said the government would implement measures to tackle the problem, including repatriating thousands of Ethiopians who had been trafficked out of their country and protecting the rights of those living in various countries.
So far, she added, 2,000 Ethiopians had been repatriated from Tanzania, Yemen, Libya and other Gulf countries, with the support of the IOM, the UN Refugee Agency and other stakeholders.
Some traffickers and smugglers have also been arraigned in court. “Ethiopian police have recently found some eight human traffickers and smugglers and sentenced them to five to 12 years,” said Moni Mengesha, head of the human trafficking and illegal drugs department at the Ethiopian federal police.
Going south
Alemu (not his real name), a 27-year-old businessman, left for South Africa in 2009 but ended up in a migrants’ camp in Malawi.
“I went to one of the secret evening presentations given by brokers in Hosaina town [400km south of the capital, Addis Ababa],” he said. “I decided that night to sell everything, close my small shop and travel to South Africa.”
They travelled in a group of eight. “The broker told us the journey from Ethiopia to South Africa would be very easy,” he added. “[But] one died from hunger as we travelled four days without food, another was shot dead [allegedly] by police around the border between Kenya and Tanzania.”
The group was caught around Songwe River by Malawi police in August 2009 and taken to Dazleka refugee camp in Dowa, some 25km north of Malawi’s capital Lilongwe.
The camp is one of the biggest for refugees from Ethiopia, Somalia, Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda and Burundi. There were about 400 Ethiopians when IRIN visited in September 2009.
“It took me almost a year to reach Malawi,” Alemu told IRIN at Songwe. “The broker in Addis told us we would easily reach South Africa, [but] we were jailed in Tanzania for three months. Each of us had paid them US$1,200. We were duped.
“I cannot reach South Africa now. I have nothing… nothing! I want to go back home. We are treated as terrorists as we steal maize and sugar cane from Malawian farmers.”
“Creating havoc”
“We are worried about Ethiopians and Somali refugees here,” a local resident told IRIN. “They are engaged in theft and robbery. We want the government to stop them from stealing our property and creating havoc here.”
Internal Affairs and Public Security Minister Aaron Sangala told Malawi’s daily newspaper, The Nation, on 6 August 2009: “I have been told they [Ethiopians] go to people’s homes in gangs of 50 terrorizing Malawians. These, to us, are economic refugees who are using Malawi as a transit centre. We cannot tolerate that abuse of our hospitality.”
“Bringing them back cannot be the only solution,” Temesgen Zewde, an opposition parliamentarian in Ethiopia, said.
Another opposition leader, Wondimu Idsa, told parliament: “It is also for political reasons that many people, including MPs, journalists and doctors, are leaving Ethiopia.” The government denied the claims.
Teshome Tadese, special adviser to the president of Southern region, from which many immigrants hail, said: “There is no political problem at all in our region. Our region is very stable; it’s totally in search of better jobs and employment that these citizens are leaving the country.”
That view was echoed by the IOM head of mission in Ethiopia, Josiah Ogina. He urged Ethiopia to ratify and apply UN protocols to prevent, suppress and punish trafficking in persons, especially women and children.
“We conducted research on youth who live in the Amhara region and are potential migrants to the Middle East and South Africa,” he told IRIN. “They told us that their main problem is unemployment not politics.”
ADDIS ABABA, ETHIOPIA (Addis Fortune) — For a change, and after several months of political doldrums, the landscape has begun to churn. Not surprisingly, the recent deal signed at the Sheraton Addis in Ethiopia’s capital Addis Ababa between leaders of the four political parties, including the incumbent’s, has struck up the debate at the various gossip corridors across the city.
However, none of the political leaders is facing the sizzle of frying pan more so than Hailu Shawel. It is fast becoming a trying task just to find defenders of his, these days.
It seems apparent that the coming national election will hardly be harvest time for Hailu and party. The situation makes it painfully obvious that he will need to employ an abundance of damage control exercises in the few months ahead – all the while paying a huge price, much more so than any of the parties in the deal.
Negotiators from his party, the All Ethiopian Unity Party (AEUP), did not surrender easily after what was an exhaustive, two-month long inter-party dialogue.
Negotiators from the ruling party [in large part] and those from the other opposition parties [to a certain extent] have demonstrated unusual patience in keeping AEUP’s negotiators at the roundtable held inside Parliament. The latter were proven to be extremely wooly, with all the list of questions they would bring the following day, purportedly from Hailu.
The chief negotiator for AEUP was Yacob Leekie, brother of Senay Leekie, a Soviet trained Marxist. He was killed in the mid-1970s inside Menelik’s Palace, during a shoot-out between those who had supported Mengistu Hailemariam and others stood against him. Senay was a prominent personality in the early years of bloody political struggle within the junior military officers and the leftist politicians around them.
Yacob is also known to have been raised with the family of Kassa WoldeMariam, president of the Addis Abeba University, during the Emperor’s rule. His daughter, Yeshi, also a great granddaughter of the Emperor’s, is married to Hailu Shawel’s son, Shawel Hailu.
Nevertheless, none of the four negotiators of AEUP were as forceful and close to Hailu as Mamushet Amare. Once a captain in the Derg army, he was calling the shots during the negotiations.
Revealing the identities of those on the negotiating front on behalf of the ruling EPRDF is proved especially relevant: Bereket Simon, Hailemariam Desalegn, Sekuture Getachew and Muktar Kedir.
The Ethiopian Democratic Party (EDP) had been represented by its president, Lidetu Ayalew, as well as Mushie Semu and Mesfin.
There was a huge uncertainty, down to the very last day, as to whether or not Hailu’s party would actually sign the deal. They had threatened to drop out of the deal on several occasions. Reason being that they had wanted to talk about broader issues, they had felt would affect the coming election, and not simply the code of conduct. It came as a surprise to all when Yacob Leekie came around to agreeing to the signing at the end.
The final point of concern among negotiators was the supposed unpredictability of Hailu fearing he would go for a microphone in the presence of Meles Zenawi. Negotiators from the ruling party had gambled, too. They were not to be disappointed as they watched Hailu say what has earned him onslaught from his supporters and appreciation from his opponents across the aisle.
Praised, he was, at a dinner party which the ruling party, Woyanne, hosted. The party was hosted inside the Addis Top View Hotel, near Ras Amba Hotel at Arat Kilo. It was held to celebrate the deal on the electoral code of conduct the very night it was signed. Several political leaders from all the four parties were seated mingled at tables which looked designed to let them feel one another out.
