In its January 2009 report, Human Rights Watch accuses Meles Zenawi’s regime in Ethiopia of war crimes and assault on civil society:
The Ethiopian government’s human rights record remains poor, marked by an ever-hardening intolerance towards meaningful political dissent or independent criticism. Ethiopian military forces have continued to commit war crimes and other serious abuses with impunity in the course of counterinsurgency campaigns in Ethiopia’s eastern Somali Region and in neighboring Somalia. Local-level elections in April 2008 provided a stark illustration of the extent to which the government has successfully crippled organized opposition of any kind—the ruling party and its affiliates won more than 99 percent of all constituencies, and the vast majority of seats were uncontested. In 2008 the government launched a direct assault on civil society by introducing legislation that would criminalize most independent human rights work and subject NGOs to pervasive interference and control.
Read the full text here.