Dr. Berhanu's Visit in Toronto

THANK YOU TO ALL THOSE WHO MADE Dr. BERHANU'S VISIT SUCCESSFUL; TOGETHER WE DID A FANTASTIC JOB. BRAVO KINIJIT FOR HUMAN RIGHTS AND DEMOCRACY.

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We have a wonderful Time (Dinner with Berhanu Nega)

Dr. Berhanu Nega Will be a guest speaker at a Town Hall Meeting In Toronto.April 19,2008 @ 2pm 40 donlands Ave. You are all invited

Ethiopia: Repression Sets Stage for Non-Competitive Elections

"It is too late to salvage these elections, which will simply be a rubber stamp on the EPRDF’s near-monopoly on power at the local level. Still, officials must at least allow the voters to decide how and whether to cast their ballots without intimidation. "
Georgette Gagnon, Africa director at Human Rights Watch


Opposition Candidates, Voters Silenced Ahead of Local Polls

(New York, April 11, 2008) – The Ethiopian government’s repression of registered opposition parties and ordinary voters has largely prevented political competition ahead of local elections that begin on April 13, Human Rights Watch said today. These widespread acts of violence, arbitrary detention and intimidation mirror long-term patterns of abuse designed to suppress political dissent in Ethiopia.
" It is too late to salvage these elections, which will simply be a rubber stamp on the EPRDF’s near-monopoly on power at the local level. Still, officials must at least allow the voters to decide how and whether to cast their ballots without intimidation. "

“It is too late to salvage these elections, which will simply be a rubber stamp on the EPRDF’s near-monopoly on power at the local level,” said Georgette Gagnon, Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “Still, officials must at least allow the voters to decide how and whether to cast their ballots without intimidation.”

Human Rights Watch carried out two weeks of field research during the run-up to the polls and documented systemic patterns of repression and abuse that have rendered the elections meaningless in many areas. That research focused primarily on Oromia, Ethiopia’s most populous region and one long troubled by heavy-handed government repression.

The nationwide elections for the kebele (village or neighborhood councils), and wereda (districts made up of several kebeles administrations), are crucially important. It is local officials who are responsible for much of the day-to-day repression that characterizes governance in Ethiopia. Many local officials in Oromia have made a routine practice of justifying their abuses by accusing law-abiding government critics of belonging to the outlawed Oromo Liberation Front (OLF), which is waging a low-level insurrection against the government.

Candidates allied with the ruling Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) will run unopposed in the vast majority of constituencies across Ethiopia. On April 10, one of Ethiopia’s two major opposition coalitions, the United Ethiopian Democratic Forces (UEDF), pulled out of the process altogether. UEDF officials complained that intimidation and procedural irregularities limited registration to only 6,000 of the 20,000 candidates they attempted to put forward for various seats. By contrast, state-controlled media reports that the EPRDF will field more than 4 million candidates across the country.

Violence, Arbitrary Detention, and Intimidation

Local ruling party officials have systematically targeted opposition candidates for violence, intimidation, and other human rights abuses since the registration period began three months ago. Particularly in areas with established opposition support, local officials have arbitrarily detained opposition candidates, searched their property without warrant, and in some cases physically assaulted them.

Credible reports collected by Human Rights Watch indicate a pattern of cooperation among officials across all three tiers of local government – zone, wereda, and kebele administrations – in carrying out these abuses. Victims interviewed by Human Rights Watch across different locations in Oromia recounted a consistent narrative. Some were arbitrarily detained and then interrogated or threatened by wereda administration officials in the presence of zonal officials. Others were arbitrarily detained by wereda police and then transferred to the custody to zonal security officials or federal soldiers.

One 31-year-old school teacher in western Oromia was detained by police and then interrogated by wereda and zonal security officials when he sought to register as an opposition candidate. “I was afraid,” he told Human Rights Watch. “They accused me of being on OLF member and said I would be shot... They put a gun in my mouth, and then made me swear that I wouldn’t go back to the opposition.” He was released nine days later, after the deadline for candidate registration had passed. Human Rights Watch interviewed other OPC candidates who had also been detained after trying to register in other constituencies.

Prospective voters who might support the opposition have been similarly targeted by the government. Secondary school students in Oromia’s Cheliya wereda, many of whom are of voting age, reported to Human Rights Watch that they have been compelled to provide a letter from representatives of their gott/garee – unofficial groupings of households into cells that are used to monitor political speech and intimidate perceived government critics – attesting that they did not belong to any opposition party. Local officials said that unless they produced those letters, they would not be allowed to register to vote. One civil servant in Gedo town was warned by a superior that he would lose his job if he supported the opposition.

“The same local level officials who are directly responsible for much of the day-to-day political repression that occurs in Ethiopia have their jobs at stake in these elections,” Gagnon said. “As such, their efforts to intimidate ordinary people into returning them to office are especially intense.”

Local authorities have also prevented the registration of opposition candidates in many constituencies where the opposition’s success in 2005 parliamentary polls appeared to give them a chance at winning. In Fincha in western Oromia, for example, the opposition Oromo People’s Congress (OPC) made three attempts to register a candidate for an open parliamentary seat. The seat had been vacated by an OPC candidate who won 81 percent of the vote in 2005 but was later forced into exile after local authorities accused him of being an OLF supporter. The OPC tried to replace him on the ballot with three different candidates but each was prevented from registering. All three candidates were physically threatened by members of the wereda administration and police and one was detained for more than a week when he tried to register.

The opposition Oromo Federalist Democratic Movement (OFDM) has encountered similar problems in western Oromia, with 10 of its 14 candidates resigning in response to pressure from local officials. In February, police in Dembi Dollo arrested 16 OFDM members and accused them of belonging to the OLF. Although a court ordered them all released two weeks later when police could provide no evidence to support their allegations, they were subsequently threatened with physical harm by local officials.

The home and crops of one OFDM member in the same area were burned. He reported this to the police with the aid of OFDM officials but alleged to Human Rights Watch that the police then failed to investigate the incident.

Such repression has been widespread in Oromia. The OPC gave Human Rights Watch the names of more than 300 party members it claims have been detained since November 2007. Investigations carried out by the Ethiopian Human Rights Council (EHRCO), Ethiopia’s preeminent human rights monitoring organization, corroborate claims that many opposition supporters in Oromia have been arrested or illegally detained for periods ranging from days to months, often on the basis of alleged links to the OLF.

Procedural and Other Bars to Opposition Participation

In many cases, acts of intimidation have gone hand-in-hand with unjustifiable bureaucratic and procedural bars on free opposition participation in the polls. Some representatives of the NEB responsible for the registration of candidates at the constituency level have worked with local officials to block opposition registration. In some cases NEB agents have cancelled the registration of opposition candidates either without explanation or based on age and residency criteria despite clear evidence to the contrary. In other instances, NEB representatives provided the names of opposition candidates to local officials and to the police. Police in some of those constituencies then cordoned off access to NEB offices and physically prevented suspected opposition candidates from entering.

Across western Oromia, the country’s largest state, local officials have refused to allow candidates of the two main opposition parties there, the OPC and OFDM, to register more than a token share of candidates. In some constituencies, authorities have closed down OPC and OFDM offices and threatened their candidates with arrest if they persisted in competing.

In some cases, local authorities offered bribes to opposition candidates to withdraw. One OFDM candidate interviewed by Human Rights Watch said that local ruling party leaders offered to pay his college tuition and guaranteed him a job in the local administration if he withdrew from the election.

“The run-up to these elections illustrates how meaningless the process of voting can be in an environment of intimidation and fear,” Gagnon said. “The Ethiopian government must publicly commit itself to ending the systemic human rights abuses that have become part of the foundation of its hold on power.”

Background

The patterns of repression and procedural manipulation that surround the upcoming polls are motivated in part by the increased importance that control of wereda and kebele administration has taken on since 2001. Financed in part by the World Bank and other donors, the Ethiopian government has decentralized the provision of basic services such as health and education. This has effectively empowered wereda administrators, who are appointed by the elected councils, with greater discretion in the allocation of budget expenditures.

The kebele system in particular is also a central part of the ruling party’s elaborate system of surveillance, intimidation, and coercion of ordinary people who are perceived as being unsympathetic to the government. The kebele were originally created by the dictatorship of Mengistu Haile Mariam for precisely this purpose and have been put to the same use by the current government since Mengistu’s ouster in 1991. Because of the kebele system’s importance in this regard, the EPRDF is particularly loathe to contemplate losing control over them.

A dominant theme in the EPRDF’s political discourse on Oromia is the need to combat the activities of the outlawed Oromo Liberation Front (OLF), which has been fighting a low-level insurrection against the government for years with Eritrean backing. Across much of Oromia, local officials have routinely and for many years used unproven allegations of links to the OLF as a pretext to subject law-abiding government critics to arbitrary detention, torture, extrajudicial killing, and other forms of human rights abuse.

Local officials in Oromia have also made extensive use of the kebele system, along with smaller cells called gott and garee, to keep residents under constant surveillance for signs of government criticism. The overwhelming majority of local and regional authorities in Oromia belong to the Oromo People’s Democratic Organization (OPDO), which is the regional arm of the EPRDF.

Ethiopia’s last elections were parliamentary polls in 2005. The run-up to the elections saw signs of openness in some areas, though in most constituencies the same patterns of repression documented above prevailed. Following the elections, opposition efforts to contest the results sparked a heavy-handed government crackdown that saw several hundred people gunned down in the streets of Addis Ababa, mass arrests of perceived opposition supporters, and several prominent opposition leaders jailed on charges of treason that were ultimately dropped.

Elections for city councils, kebele councils, and vacated parliamentary seats will be held on Sunday, April 13, 2008. Elections for the wereda councils will follow on April 20. The exercise is a vast one – Ethiopia is made up of 547 weredas, and each of those is broken up into numerous kebeles whose governing councils each seat 300 representatives. The weredas are grouped into zones, whose administrations are not at stake in these elections, and the zones are grouped into nine ethnically-based regions.

Ethiopia’s government is highly dependent on donor assistance but donor governments, including the United States and United Kingdom, have largely refused to criticize repression in Ethiopia or to demand improvements in the country’s human rights record. The United States in particular views Ethiopia as a key ally in the “war on terror,” and donor governments in general often express fear that Ethiopia’s government will react poorly to human rights-related criticisms. The Ethiopian government has refused to allow any foreign observers to monitor the upcoming elections.

Ethiopia' "war crime tribunal" violated human rights

Appolon | April 8, 2008

The Ethiopian legal system has accused several thousands of brutal war crimes. Now the war crimes tribunal has itself violated fundamental human rights.

Tekst: Yngve Vogt, Translated by Kathrine Torday Gulden

Ethiopia's trial against the criminals of war from the harsh Derg regime (1974-1991) undermines human rights, says Associate Professor Kjetil Tronvoll at the Norwegian Center for Human Rights at the University of Oslo.

He has studied the political development in Ethiopia since 1990 and has attended the elections as a researcher and election monitor both in Ethiopia and Eritrea. His book on the trial, which is a result of collaborative work between anthropologists, legal practitioners, historians and political scientists from Ethiopia, Norway and USA, is to be published at the publishing houses James Currey (Oxford) and the Ohio University Press (Athens).

Red Terror

After the revolution against Emperor Haile-Selassie in 1974, the Mengistu Hailemariams military junta took power. The regime supported by Moscow withheld power until 1991.

Even thought the regime and opposition maintained Marxism, they're interpretations differed. Severe punishment of those in opposition to the military junta was executed. The purifications at the end of the seventies, known as Red Terror, were similar to the Moscow processes in the 1930s. Approximately 55 000 political intellectuals were liquidated. The victims consisted mainly of urban, young students.

– The method of torture was dreadful. The goal was to spread public fear. Eye witnesses tell that the victims were cooked in oil and their nails were pulled out. Mothers were raped in front of their children. Pieces of clothing soaked in urine and covered with other excrements were stuffed in the victims' mouths. The torturers used a pair of pincers to break noses. Then they would slit the victims' throats or strangle them slowly, says Kjetil Tronvoll to the research magazine Apollon.

Many were shot at night. The regime attached tags which read «contra-revolutionary» on the bodies. Relatives were only permitted to fetch the bodies if they paid for the bullets used to kill them.

The political party EPRP was acknowledged as the main enemy, but they also had blood stained hands and killed thousands of people, among these several mayors and governors. All in all almost 200 000 people were killed during the seventies and eighties due to the conflicts in the multi-ethnic society where «everyone was at war with each other».

– One could say that it was legitimate of the state to defend itself against «illegal opposition», but the defence method they used got out of hand.

The Trial

Contrary to South Africa, which chose a commission of truth and national reconciliation, Ethiopia leans on the penal settlement.

Several thousands were interned when EPRDF came to power in 1991. Not everyone had connections with Red Terror. The government also used the situation to cleanse out political enemies and dissidents within their own party and kept them interned for years.

2258 people were accused of war crimes. The accused can be divided into three groups.

Group one: Colonel Mengistu and the political and military leadership, all in all 55 men.

Group two: 200 people from the military interlayer who channelled the orders to kill and burn down villages.

Group three: The last group consisted of approximately 2000 men who were enlisted foot soldiers accused of torture and murder.

Many of the executions during the Red Terror were carried out on written order. These documents were used as evidence in the trial.

Long-drawn-out

The trial began in 1995 and lasted for 13 years. The sentence in regard to the top leaders was passed in December 2007. This sentence has been appealed. The appeal case can take time.

– The most important criticism in regard to human rights is the length of the case process. The custodians had to wait for 16 years. Some of these were given shorter sentences than the time they had spent in custody. Some were released due to lack of evidence.

– The defence was denied access to the evidence material before the prosecutor presented the material in court. Some counsels for the defence were denied meeting their client in court. The process has undermined public security.

The judges were biased

EPRDF replaced most of the judges from the Megistu Regime with their own. Many believe the replacement was based on ethnic issues.

– The new judges were loyal to the party, lacked juridical competence and education. The sentences of the leadership were based on the paragraph on genocide. International legal practitioners are sceptical to the use of this paragraph.

– The murders were ideological and not ethnically motivated. It is therefore difficult to define this as genocide.

The problem with a trial that has lasted for 13 years is that many judges have been replaced during the process. The person who is to pass the sentence has therefore not heard the first submission of evidence.

The trial took long time due to an ineffective administration and lack of resources such as too few secretaries and copying machines. The trial was too thorough and the submission of evidence was too extensive.

– Instead of 100 witnesses and 10 000 pages of documents, it would have been more than enough with five witnesses and 100 pages to pass a sentence.

That the court only met every second week did not improve the situation either.

Loss of legitimacy

A few death sentences were passed, but the real bad guy Mengistu and his generals were not sentenced to death. This was most likely a political decision to get Mengistu extradited from Zimbabwe.

– The court process started to educate the Ethiopian public about the political divide after the fall of Mengistu. The process became the main cause of the new regime. They signalized that they took human rights seriously.

When the government met an increasing political opposition after 1995, the regime itself became the perpetrator.

– Today, Ethiopia has thousands of political prisoners, the regime is not democratic or based on human rights. That in itself demeans the legitimacy of the court process.

As an example of this three generals from Red Terror are mentioned. They were pardoned of having partaken in the war against Eritrea in 1998-2000. Friends became enemies and vice versa. Soldiers of the Derg Army were asked to enlist the new Eritrea war.

 This in itself indicates that the court process has a political lopsidedness.

The government has not pardoned those who have been interned for a longer time than their sentence would entail.

Uncertain future

Tronvoll fears the judicial authority in Ethiopia.

– The legal system has not been consolidated and does not have sufficient capacity. They have a long way to go. The danger of new politicians yet again replacing the judges with their own loyal party fellows, is most definitely present, says Kjetil Tronvoll at the Norwegian Center for Human Rights.

Will democracy defeat a despot?;

Toronto Star: April 03, 2008

Election could spell the end of Mugabe in ruined Zimbabwe

The bell finally seems to be tolling for Robert Gabriel Mugabe, as the party led by the octogenarian Zimbabwean strongman suddenly finds itself without
a parliamentary majority for the first time in nearly three decades.

The loss marks a critical and perhaps fatal blow for a man once seen as the hope of a troubled continent slowly freeing itself from the shackles of European
colonialism, but a politician now more widely regarded as an iron- fisted power monger who battered his opponents and presided over his country's economic
decline.

In recent years, it has seemed only a funeral would wrest Mugabe from the presidency of a beautiful and once prosperous land - prosperous by African standards
- a land that he himself ruined.

But yesterday, it was starting to appear that a democratic election, of all things, might finally serve as the mechanism to bring the despot down.

After four suspenseful days, a trickle of voting results released by Zimbabwe's electoral commission following Saturday's elections finally produced a clear
result, with Mugabe's long-ruling ZANU-PF party losing to the combined opposition, led by the Movement for Democratic Change, in the country's national
assembly.

But, days after the elections, there was still no word on the outcome of the crucial presidential race, which was held alongside the parliamentary vote.

Meanwhile, the 84-year-old Mugabe, who has run this land-locked southern African republic since 1980 when Zimbabwe won independence under majority rule,
has not been seen or heard in public since casting his ballot on Saturday.
Nonetheless, his sombre, bespectacled visage continued to glower down upon Zimbabweans from campaign banners and nearly ubiquitous official portraits, much
as it has done for decades.
Once the breadbasket of southern Africa, Zimbabwe in recent years has suffered a breathtaking economic collapse, and Mugabe, his policies, and his cronies
are widely held to blame, both for this country's financial misery and for its bleak human-rights record.
The opposition MDC insists its leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, has won the presidential contest, as well as the legislative vote, and yesterday released its
own figures, showing Tsvangirai besting Mugabe with 50.3 per cent of the presidential ballots cast against 43.8 per cent for the long-time ruler.
But a government spokesperson warned Mugabe's adversaries against drawing hasty conclusions.
"You are prejudging the election, aren't you?" Deputy Information Minister Brighton Matonga told a television interviewer yesterday. "It's not over until
it's over."
If no presidential candidate captures a majority of the ballots cast in Saturday's vote, a runoff between the top two candidates would have to be held within
three weeks.
Based on its own unofficial results, the MDC has claimed another vote isn't needed, but Tendai Biti, a party official, said yesterday the MDC would agree
to a second round if necessary. "We accept under protest," he said. "It's just a delaying of the inevitable."
As for the legislative contest, according to official results, the opposition won 109 seats in the country's 210-seat legislative chamber, versus 97 seats
for Mugabe's party and one for an independent candidate. Three seats must be decided in by-elections after candidates died or withdrew.
Foreign Affairs Minister Maxime Bernier welcomed the results.
"This opens a window of opportunity for real and significant democratic change in Zimbabwe," he said in a news release. "Specifically, we look to the new
Zimbabwean government to implement policy changes that will improve the human rights situation in Zimbabwe.
"Canada commends the Zimbabwean people, who have remained calm and peaceful in the face of inexplicable delays. We call upon Zimbabwe's leaders to seize
this critical opportunity for positive change in a manner that respects freedom, democracy, human rights and the rule of law."
Most Zimbabweans seemed to be taking the unfolding drama in stride yesterday, condemned as they are to a daily battle, trying their best to get by despite
their country's economic free-fall.
Inflation is reckoned to be spiralling at a breakneck annual pace of more than 100,000 per cent, as the central bank continues to churn out banknotes in
ever larger quantities and denominations, never mind that they become worthless almost as soon as they hit the streets.
At Greaterman's Department Store on Jason Moyo Ave. yesterday, a small tin of pilchards in tomato sauce was selling for 47 million Zimbabwe dollars. A can
of tinned beans cost 75 million. A bar of deodorant soap bore a price tag of 81 million. And a single apple would set you back by 25 million.
At the Clicks Health Home Beauty Store, a basic Phillips toaster could be yours for just 3.5 billion dollars.
Based on the black market exchange rate prevailing yesterday (it will be different today), a Canadian loonie was worth about 38 million Zimbabwean dollars.
Along Harare's First St. pedestrian mall, large queues formed all day near automated telling machines, as city-dwellers patiently waited to withdraw seemingly
vast quantities of currency.
One woman outside a branch of the ZB Bank on First St. said she meant to withdraw a cool half-billion dollars.
But how much is that? A little or a lot?

"It depends on your budget," she replied.

But a man in the same lineup quickly contradicted her.

"No, it's very little money," he said. "It's just for a day."

At yesterday's black-market rate, a half-billion Zimbabwe dollars were worth about $13.16 Canadian.

That won't go far, considering that the Drumstick Special at the Chicken Inn ("Luv Dat Chicken!") outlet was priced at 110 million Zimbabwe dollars yesterday.

Other queues formed on the basis of hearsay. About 50 people were lined up late yesterday outside the OK Supermarket because they had heard a rumour that
a delivery of wheat flour was expected soon.

"There hasn't been any flour for days," said one man in the lineup.

An hour later, there was still no flour, and yet the queue remained.

Mugabe blames the country's woes on economic sanctions imposed by Western nations, but outside observers and local opposition leaders say the former schoolteacher
and longtime freedom-fighter brought on Zimbabwe's misery through a succession of disastrous decisions, including the expropriation of white commercial
farmers - long the country's economic backbone - and a costly military adventure in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, among other financial fiascos.
With his party's now official loss in legislative elections, it seemed difficult to imagine Mugabe - who is widely believed to have manipulated elections
his way before - could now engineer a remotely credible victory in the presidential contest. After 28 years of unbroken and nearly dictatorial rule, it
seemed likely - though not yet certain - that the patriarch's days in power were finally numbered.
But the electoral commission's continuing silence on the results of the presidential vote was cause for concern and even alarm.

Oakland Ross

Mr. Obang Metho Addresses Law students and faculty At the College of Law, University of Saskatchewan

Mr. Obang Metho / March 25, 2008

I would like to thank the College of Law at the University of Saskatchewan and especially the faculty and students for inviting me to speak tonight. I would also like to thank Scales of Social Justice League (SOS Justice League): for giving me the honor of being your keynote speaker at Access to Justice Week.
When I first received the invitation a month ago to speak about justice, I was asked to speak on the topic, International Law: Does it Create Barriers in Access to Justice? The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Geneva Convention, the Rome statutes—what do these mean to the world, especially to those suffering the worst Anuak violations of these principles, laws and codes around the world?
I was told that I should speak in reference to my testimony of the case of my own ethnic group, the , before the United Nations Human Rights Commission in 2004 and because of my human rights work, including the two legal cases I have been working on with two different law firms, one who submitted our case to the International Criminal Court (ICC) and another who submitted our case to the African Union’s Commission on Peoples’ and Human Rights. I am very pleased to share these experiences with you today.
For most of you who do not know me, I am resident of Saskatchewan and graduated with a degree in political science from this university. I have lived in Saskatchewan for a long time since coming from Gambella, Ethiopia. It is interesting that when I was doing development work in Africa and was asked where I was from, I said I was from Saskatoon, Canada, but when I was here in Saskatoon, people would ask me the same question and I would answer, Africa. I guess I have one foot in both places and I call both, home!
It is good to be back at this great campus which has meant a lot to me, not only because I graduated from this university, but also because of the great support and friendships I have with so many wonderful faculty and staff in the University’s Colleges and Departments such as in the Department of Political Science, the Department of Division of Media and Technology, Department of International Studies, Department of Sociology, the College of Arts & Science, the College of Medicine, the College of Education as well as with students!
It is no wonder why last month during the International Week Workshop at this University, there was a presentation on Ethiopia at the College of Agriculture and the Ethiopian Minister of Foreign Affairs Office made a big deal out of it. The government of Ethiopia wrote on their websites that they were working with the University of Saskatchewan and Canadian government on such things as good governance, democracy and development because the Ethiopian government knows it very well that this university is my home.

I and others knew that this was another campaign to fool the people, especially because of my link to this university. They may have thought they were invading “Obang’s territory!” However, we both know the truth of what is going on in Ethiopia and to the best of my ability, I will continue to speak publicly, whenever and wherever I can do so, about the broken government and gross human rights abuses in Ethiopia until real justice, democracy, good governance, the rule of law and development is established in Ethiopia.
What I am going to talk about tonight is the experience that I have gained since I became involved in human rights work in late 2003 following the three-day long massacre of 424 from my own ethnic group, the Anuak, by the Ethiopian military.
Some of what I have learned about human rights work has been very disillusioning. As I speak of my own experience, you may learn that I am very disappointed with many in the international community, despite the good intentions of the creators of our human rights laws. The reason for is that not far underneath this system that is supposed to uphold the human rights of all people, is a system that resists the carrying out of those laws at most every level.
It is a common struggle—between the higher and lower natures within every person—between what one knows is right and what one wants for one’s own reasons. Our problem is not about knowing the difference. It is about having the moral strength to choose the right way to live. In order to face this crisis affecting millions throughout the world, we must first have the courage to face the dark side of our own flawed humanity. The problem is not the law; it is within us, individually, especially with many of those who wield the power!

International Human Rights laws are, without question, laws based on noble, God-given principles, many of which were enshrined in the non-binding Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Eleanor Roosevelt of United States of America chaired the committee responsible for formulating these principles and a renowned Canadian law professor, John Humphrey, heavily contributed to the content.
By declaring the inalienable rights and dignity of each human being, regardless of any differences, it also declared the need to protect each human being—particularly the vulnerable—from the worst actions of others. These universal values and principles were proclaimed and later ratified by the majority of countries around the world.
Other international human rights laws from the past, like the Geneva Convention, which basically set rules for the treatment of prisoners of war, were updated at this time as well. Other human rights laws also followed in an attempt to make binding, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights with the purpose of protecting human kind from such crimes as genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes.
Continuing implementation of other human rights treaties, dealt with additional areas such as racial discrimination, torture, the rights of the child, among others. The most recent human rights laws, the Rome Statutes, established the International Criminal Court, the ICC.
The original intent of these laws was to intervene to protect the vulnerable and see to it that the worst violators would be held accountable. The impetus for most of the laws came out of the horrible atrocities of World War I and World War II. The shock waves among people in the world to the barbaric acts of the Holocaust during which six million Jews, along with others, were exterminated, provided the rationale for a multi-lateral mechanism for intervening in the national affairs of another sovereign country.
It was in 1945 that the League of Nations formally was changed into the United Nations. The United Nations is the only organization in the international community with the mandate and worldwide legal jurisdiction to oversee and enforce these international human rights laws. The High Commissioner of Human Rights oversees the Human Rights Council who has the mandate to investigate violations of human rights.

The Human Rights Council has 47 members, elected by the full assembly by secret ballot. When I was there before the Council in 2004, a Sudanese representative sat on that council, despite the genocide going on in Darfur. This gives you an idea of who is hearing your case. Since that time, member states, who have committed gross human rights crimes, are excluded from membership.
The Council has the authority to appoint special investigators, rapporteurs, to do further investigation and report back to them. If force is to be used, including military intervention and sanctions, it is the United Nations Security Council who must authorize it. The current UN Security Council members are from the US, Russia, the UK, France and China.
However, regional organizations, such as the African Union, have been created to deal on a regional basis with many of these same issues and advise governments of their findings and recommendations. An African Judicial Court is in the development stage, but not yet operating. Cases from the African Union can be referred to the ICC.
The question is—have they achieved the well-intentioned objectives for which these laws were created? Have they made easier the path to justice or have they created their own barriers that have blocked the accomplishment of their intent?
I would contend that the problem is largely not with the content enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights or in the numerous human rights laws and mandates, but is more about the lack of moral will to enforce them as well as due to the suppression of information that surrounds the commission of human rights violations.
These laws were meant to prevent genocide like the Holocaust from ever happening again. However, the evidence of the failure of these laws to be enforced is tragically clear when one looks at the millions of lives lost in Cambodia, Chile, Sierra Leone, Rwanda, Darfur, Yugoslavia and numerous others places around the globe, including the case of the Anuak.
Yet, because the law regarding genocide was written in such a way to demand intervention in cases of genocide, the superpowers are reluctant to call cases that meet that definition because it requires action. Instead, most cases are defined as “crimes against humanity” as a way to skirt the obligation to do something. For instance, the United States has called Darfur a genocide while the European Union has not.

There are several reasons for this. For one, inherent in the laws is a tension between international intervention and national sovereignty. The case must be strong to cross international borders, intervening in an independent sovereign state. However, when the government of one’s own country is committing atrocities against its own citizens, like what happened in Rwanda, the intent of the law is that the need to protect the vulnerable trumps the rights of that nation.
Yet, unfortunately, many different factors influence whether or not the United Nations and the international community will take any action. At the same time, many in the world are under the illusion that the United Nations will act when and where appropriate. Because of this, most feel that they can settle back and not get involved.

I was under this illusion when I presented the case of the Anuak to the United Nations High Commission on Human Rights in April of 2004 after Ethiopian Defense Forces massacred 424 people from my ethnic group in Gambella, Ethiopia. Let me start by explaining what happened. Oil exploration in the Gambella area in southwestern Ethiopia, on the border of Sudan, revealed promising oil reserves on indigenous Anuak land.
The Anuak leaders spoke out regarding wanting to be involved in the decision making, as spelled out in the Ethiopian Constitution, but they were seen as trouble-makers. When the killing of Anuak leaders began on December 13 through 15 of 2003, the Chinese were visiting the country and the oil rights had been given to Petronas of Malaysia and their subsidiary, the Zhongyuan Petroleum Exploration Bureau (ZPEB), of China to begin their work in the area immediately.
The Ethiopian military had a list of Anuak names, each allegedly picked due to their leadership, educational background or overall influence in the community. For instance, one of the first ones on the list was my sister-in-law’s father who was a beloved pastor. Others included many of those I was working closely with in the development work.
A number of doctors from Saskatoon had accompanied me to Gambella and we had plans to develop a full-scale medical project between the two cities that had to be temporarily suspended for safety reasons. We had received a large CIDA grant for the project that instead, had to be returned due to continuing security concerns for Canadian students, who as part of the project, would have been spending time in Gambella.
The massacre began on December 13, 2003 when the Ethiopian military, accompanied by some local militia groups from a different ethnic background, went door to door, pulling out the Anuak from their homes. If they refused to come out, their homes were set on fire until they had to run for safety. The militias then hacked them with machetes and clubs. If they ran, they were shot by the defense troops in Ethiopian uniform.
They marched through the town chanting, “Today is the day for killing Anuak.” As they raped the women and young girls, they chanted, “Now you will have no more Anuak babies!” The Ethiopian National Defense troops did not stop there, but destroyed homes, water wells, granaries, crops, health clinics and schools. They continued to wreak havoc in the rural areas in the following weeks and months, killing, injuring, raping, torturing and detaining many more Anuak. About 10,000 fled the country for refuge in south Sudan. It is unknown today how many Anuak were killed as many were buried in mass graves and in remote areas, but some believe over 1500 were killed.
The tragedy was a tremendous loss for the Anuak who were already considered an endangered people group, totaling only about .01% of the total population of 80 million Ethiopians. Additionally, most of those killed were the leaders and most educated in the community of a very marginalized people.
These human rights abuses are all well-documented in a co-sponsored investigation by two US-based organizations, Genocide Watch and Survivors’ Rights, organizations created to prevent genocide. That report, “Today Is the Day for Killing Anuak,” and a subsequent one, “Operation Sunny Mountain,” are available on their websites as well as on ours. Another report by Human Rights Watch, which came out on March 24, 2005, “Targeting the Anuak,” is also available on their website.
The question is—does the Anuak massacre meet the definition of genocide? To answer it, we need to review the law itself. Genocide was addressed at the Genocide Convention and the laws regarding it were adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on December 9, 1948. More than 130 nations have ratified the Genocide Convention since that time. Ethiopia is one of these.
Now, according to the definition of genocide in Article II of the Convention, what happened to the Anuak does meet the criteria for being classified as a genocide as it meets the overall definition as well as it meets one or more of the criteria. In fact, it meets all but the last—forcibly transferring children of the group to another.
In the definition, genocide means any of the following acts committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, as such:
(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (including inflicting trauma on members of the group through widespread torture, rape, sexual violence, forced or coerced use of drugs, and mutilation rape)
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; includes the deliberate deprivation of resources needed for the group’s physical survival, such as clean water, food, clothing, shelter or medical services. Deprivation of the means to sustain life can be imposed through confiscation of harvests, blockade of foodstuffs, detention in camps, forcible relocation or expulsion into deserts.
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; includes the deliberate deprivation of resources needed for the group’s physical survival, such as clean water, food, clothing, shelter or medical services. Deprivation of the means to sustain life can be imposed through confiscation of harvests, blockade of foodstuffs, detention in camps, forcible relocation or expulsion into deserts.
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
Article III strongly states that the acts of (a) Genocide; (b) Conspiracy to commit genocide; (c) Direct and public incitement to commit genocide; (d) Attempt to commit genocide and (e) Complicity in genocide shall be punished.
The Anuak case meets the stringent criteria of genocide under the law as the intent to destroy part of a specific ethnic group could be proven. The Anuak was the only ethnic group targeted in a region of at least eight other ethnic groups. The presence of the list, the slogans, the recruiting, arming and incitement of the militias all proved the intent to destroy the Anuak, in this case the educated leaders, and the intent to incite others to do so as well.
The maiming, injury, burning down of homes with inhabitants in them and the widespread raping of the women and girls accompanied by the slogan that the result would be to prevent or limit the birth of “Anuak” babies met another definition. The only definition that was not met was the forcible transfer of children from one group to another. However, one does not need to meet all these criteria to meet the overall definition.

Additionally, information was later documented in another investigation by Genocide Watch and Survivors’ Rights that gave evidence that the plan had an actual name, “Operation Sunny Mountain,” which alleged that those in the highest offices in the country had knowledge of the plan, if not direct involvement. No one still has been found accountable for the crimes despite the mandate in Article III to punish perpetrators. What went wrong?
Most of us in the world live under a number of illusions that are propped up by false beliefs about the international community, the United Nations and the presence of international human rights laws.

We in the Anuak Justice Council were no different. I will use our own experience, along with others, where relevant, to further explain the obstacles to securing justice through the international community.

A call for worldwide Solidarity for Daniel & Netsanet

A call for worldwide Solidarity for Daniel & Netsanet

Posted on 16th March 2008

A call for worldwide Solidarity dedicated to human rights and civic society activists Daniel Bekele & Netsanet Demissie.

Daniel Bekele (m), policy manager of the Ethiopian office of ActionAid (international development NGO), lawyer

Netsanet Demissie (m), director of NGO Organization for Social Justice in Ethiopia.

……………..

Daniel Bekele and Netsanet Demissie are human rights activists who ended up being deprived of their own basic human rights. Amnesty International and other international human rights organisations consider them as prisoners of conscience. 27 months have now passed since they have been illegally detained and justice has not yet been restored.

Netsanet Demissie is a human rights and environmental lawyer based in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. He is the founder and Executive Director of the Organization for Social Justice in Ethiopia (OSJE), which took part in monitoring national elections in May 2005. Daniel Bekele is the head of the Policy Research and Advocacy Department for Action Aid International in Ethiopia. Both Netsanet Demissie and Daniel Bekele are coordinators of the Global Call to Action against Poverty (GCAP). The two were arrested following the aftermath of May 2005 election and remained in jail to this day.

Daniel Bekele and Netsanet Demissie are some of the last remaining prisoners following a trial that started in May 2006, which originally involved 131 politicians, journalists, civil society leaders and organisations accused of a range of charges from genocide to treason. They were among thousands who were detained following protests accusing the Ethiopian regime of rigging the 15 May 2005 National elections. Some of the accused were acquitted during the course of the trial. Others were convicted but pardoned in July and August 2007 after they allegedly signed a confession letter apologizing for “mistakes” in the demonstrations following the 2005 elections.

Although they were asked to sign a similar statement, Daniel and Netsanet declined. Counting on the non-existent justice system they argued that their activities in 2005 were entirely legal and did not serve to undermine, but rather to protect and promote Ethiopia ’s constitutional order.

Throughout this sham trial Daniel and Netsanet defended the charges of ‘outrage against the Constitution and constitutional order’, and proved beyond reasonable doubt that they were within the law, but partisan judges were not interested in upholding the rule of law.

On 26 December 2007 they were unjustly convicted by the phoney court and were sentenced for two and half years.

Daniel Bekele and Netsanet Demissie become victims of persecution as a consequence of their peaceful activities in defence of human rights. Furthermore, this is another evidence that indicates the deplorable and ferocious campaign waged by the dictatorial regime that is bent on silencing civic society and human rights defenders in Ethiopia.

We salute these great civic leaders that have become an inspiration for many of their young compatriots, who are keen to promote their cause and vow to follow on their tracks in the building of a better and just society.

ACTION REQUESTED:

We ask the international civic and human rights organizations across the globe not to give up on the demand for the freedom of their illegally detained colleagues.

We ask Governments of democratic nations to use your good offices to put pressure on the regime on Ethiopia to respect human rights and release these two human rights activists unconditionally.

We ask all international human rights activists and concerned Ethiopians to publicize, as widely as possible, the news of this outrageous injustice by the regime in Ethiopia, condemning it in the strongest possible terms. Letters of protest may be sent to any or all of the international organizations asking them to demand for the immediate and unconditional release of Daniel Bekele and Netsanet Demissie.

Insist on Zenawi’s regime to stop the threat against all civic society and human rights defenders in Ethiopia, as well as lifting all prohibitions preventing them to freely conduct their lawful and peaceful work towards building a democratic society,

Let us put our voice together to press the ruling regime in Ethiopia to respect the rights of human rights defenders and civil society to operate without fear of intimidation or reprisal.

Let us make sure that we take time this week to express our solidarity and campaign for the freedom of the jailed civic society and human rights defenders Daniel Bekele and Netsanet Demissie.

…………………………………….

Text taken from previous solidarity call by Ethiopian Civic Consortium UK, posted on 29th February 2008, available below;
Solidarity week for Daniel Bekele and Netsanet Demissie

…………………………………….

American Power and the Struggle for Democracy and against Terror in Africa

Dr. Berhanu Nega, Mayor-Elect of Addis Ababa,Ethiopia, former prisoner of concise and Economist.
From His Speech @Bucknell University, February, 2008


I. Introduction

It was a clear Thursday evening in March 2006 when two prison guards armed with their AK47’s called me outside my prison cell. The sky was full of beautiful sparkling stars. I and my colleagues in the Coalition for Unity and Democracy ( CUD) had been in prison already for five months by then. Since prisoners were herded inside their cells at about 5:30 every afternoon, we didn’t have a chance to see the stars at night. At the time I was in a warehouse converted into a prison cell with some 350 inmates, most of them common criminals. The guards told me to get dressed and cleaned up because I had “important” visitors waiting for me at the main prison office. Followed by my two escorts and enjoying the stars that I had not seen for months, I went to the office to meet these “unknown” guests. But, when I got to the office, I saw the familiar figures of Vicky Huddleston, the Charges d’ Affaires for the U.S. Embassy along with her young assistant and the French Ambassador. Since we all knew each other from previous meetings and Embassy functions, we shared a few pleasantries before we started with the more serious business that brought them to the Kaliti prison.
I was happy to see them initially, thinking that the West had finally seen the madness of the Meles Zenawi government and might be looking for a negotiated way out of the political crisis. Even after these five months in prison, the political instability had continued unabated and some important small rural towns in Oromia were being rocked by demonstrations. I knew the U.S. was nervous about the instability and wished it to end. What I didn’t know was how far they were willing to go in pushing the government to clean up its act and respect its own laws, since that was really what was at issue here.

Congressional Record Statement of Senator Russ Feingold

Congressional Record Statement of Senator Russ Feingold
On the Political Crisis in Ethiopia

March 3, 2008

Mr. President, I rise today to discuss the political situation in Ethiopia. The US-Ethiopian partnership is an incredibly important one – perhaps one of the more significant on the continent given not only our longstanding history but also the increasingly strategic nature of our cooperation in recent years. Ethiopia sits on the Horn of Africa – perhaps one of the roughest neighborhoods in the world, with Somalia a failed state and likely safe haven for terrorists, Eritrea an inaccessible authoritarian regime that exacerbates conflicts throughout the region, Sudan a genocidal regime, and now Kenya descending into crisis. By contrast, Ethiopia seems relatively stable with its growing economy and robust poverty reduction programs.

Indeed, one look at the deteriorating situation on the Horn of Africa and it is clear just how essential our relationship with Ethiopia really is. Unfortunately, the Bush Administration’s approach to strengthening and building bilateral ties with Ethiopia has been short-sighted and narrow. As in other parts of the world, the Administration’s counter-terrorism agenda dominates the relationship, while poor governance and human rights concerns get a pass.

Mr. President, genuine democratic progress in Ethiopia is essential if we are to have a healthy and positive bilateral relationship. We can not allow a myopic focus on one element of security to obscure our understanding of what is really occurring in Ethiopia. Rather than place our support in one man, we must invest in Ethiopia’s institutions and its people to create a stable, sustainable political system. As we are seeing right now in Kenya, political repression breeds deep-seated resentment, which can have destructive and far-reaching consequences. The United States and the international community can not support one policy objective at the expense of all others. To do so not only hurts the credibility of America and the viability of our democratic message, but it severely jeopardizes our national security.

Mr. President, I am seriously concerned about the direction Ethiopia is headed – because according to many credible accounts, the political crisis that has been quietly growing and deepening over the past few years may be coming to a head. For years, faced with calls for political or economic reforms, the Ethiopian government has displayed a troubling tendency to react with alarmingly oppressive and disproportionate tactics.

For example, Mr. President, in 2003, we received reports of massacres of civilians in the Gambella region of Ethiopia, which touched off a wave of violence and destruction that has yet to truly loosen its grip on the region. At that time, hundreds of lives were lost, tens of thousands were displaced, and many homes, schools, and businesses throughout the area were destroyed. Credible observers agree that Ethiopian security forces were heavily involved in some of the most serious abuses and more than 5 years later no one has been held accountable and there have been no reparations.

The national elections held in May 2005 were a severe step back for Ethiopia’s democratic progress. In advance of the elections, the Ethiopian Government expelled representatives of the three democracy-promotion organizations supported by USAID to assist the Ethiopian election commission, facilitate dialogue among political parties and election authorities, train pollwatchers, and assist civil society in the creation of a code of conduct. This expulsion was the first time in 20 years that a government has rejected such assistance, and the organizations have still not returned to Ethiopia because they do not feel an environment exists where they can truly undertake their objectives.

Despite massive controversy surrounding the polls, it is notable that opposition parties still won an unprecedented number of parliamentary seats. Their pursuit of transparency and democracy was again thwarted, however, when they tried to register their concerns about the election process. In one incident, peaceful demonstrations by opposition members and their supporters in Ethiopia’s capital of Addis Ababa were met with disproportionate and lethal force that killed more than 30 people and injured over 100. In another incident, the Ethiopian government arrested thousands of peacefully protesting citizens who took to the streets in support of the opposition.

The systemic nature of this crackdown was revealed in credible reports coming from the Oromia and Amhara regions that federal police were unacceptably threatening, beating and detaining opposition supporters. Indeed, international human rights groups documented that regional authorities were exaggerating their concerns about armed insurgency and “terrorism” to try to justify the torture, imprisonment and sustained harassment of critics and even ordinary citizens.

This tendency to portray political dissent as extremist uprisings has been repeated more recently with regards to what is being characterized by some as a brutal counterinsurgency operation led by Ethiopia’s military in the Ogaden, a long-neglected region that borders Somalia. Certainly I recognize the serious security concerns in this region, made worse by the porous borders of the failed state just a stone’s throw away.

But it is precisely because Ethiopia is our partner in the fight against al Qaeda, its affiliates and allies, Mr. President, that I am so concerned about what I understand to be a massive military crackdown that does not differentiate between rebel groups and civilians. While I am sure there are few clean hands when it comes to fighting in the Ogaden region, the reports I have received about the Ethiopian government’s illicit military tactics and human rights violations are of great concern.

I have been hearing similar reports of egregious human rights abuses being committed in Somalia, about which I am gravely concerned. When I visited Ethiopia just over a year, I urged the Prime Minister not to send his troops into Somalia because I thought it might make instability there worse, not better. Tragically, more than a year later, it seems my worst fears have been realized as tens of thousands of people have fled their homes, humanitarian access is at an all time low, and there are numerous reports of increasing brutality towards civilians caught in the crossfire. In the interest of its own domestic security, Ethiopia is contributing to increased regional instability.

Mr. President, what troubles me most is that the reports of Ethiopia’s military coming out of the Ogaden and Mogadishu join a long list of increasingly repressive actions taken by the Ethiopian government. The Bush Administration must not turn a blind eye to the aggressive – and recurring – tactics being utilized by one of our key allies to stifle dissent.

I certainly welcome the role the Bush Administration has played in helping to secure the release of many -- although not all -- of the individuals thrown in jail in the aftermath of the 2005 elections. I welcome the Embassy’s engagement with opposition members and their efforts to encourage Ethiopian officials to create more political space for alternative views, independent media, and civil society. These are all important steps Mr. President, but they do not go far enough.

The Administration’s efforts at backroom diplomacy, Mr. President, are not working. I understand and respect the value of quiet diplomacy, but sometimes we reach the point where such a strategy is rendered ineffective – when private rhetorical commitments are repeatedly broken by unacceptable public actions. For example, recent reports that the Ethiopian government is jamming our Voice of America radio broadcasts should be condemned in no uncertain terms, not shrugged off.

The Bush administration must live up to its own rhetoric in promoting democracy and human rights by making it clear that we do not – and will not -- tolerant the Ethiopian government’s abuses and illegal behavior. It must demonstrate that there are consequences for the repressive and often brutal tactics employed by the Ethiopian government, which are moving Ethiopia farther away from – not closer to – the goal of becoming a legitimate democracy and are increasingly a source of regional instability.

Mr. President, I’m afraid that the failure of this Administration to acknowledge the internal crisis in Ethiopia is emblematic of its narrow-minded agenda, which will have repercussions for years to come if not addressed immediately. Worse yet, without a balanced US policy that addresses both short- and long-term challenges to stability in Ethiopia, we run the risk of contributing to the groundswell of proxy wars rippling across the Horn – whether in Somalia, eastern Sudan, or even the Ogaden region. And those wars, in turn, by contributing to greater insecurity on the Horn and providing opportunities for forces that oppose U.S. interests, pose a direct threat to our own national security as well.

I yield the floor.

Dr. YACOB HAILE MARIAM: RECONCILIATION WITHIN KINIJIT LEADERSHIP IS A MUST

By Kirubel Tadesse: Capital

Dr. Yakob Hailemariam, a former UN prosecutor and one of the key figures of the former Coalition for Unity and Democracy Party (CUDP) during the May 2005 elections, stated that reconciliation between the Hailu Shaul and Birtukan Medkisa’s group is not only a likely option but a must ,considering the consequences if talks fail.
In an exclusive interview he gave Capital, Dr. Yakob said that he is hoping for reconciliation because what is at stake is the future of Ethiopia and there isn’t anything that shouldn’t come before the interest of the country and the people. Talking about the current state of the political process in Ethiopia, Dr. Yakob explained to Capital that twenty five million people, who voted for the former CUDP, have been disfranchised because of the decision of giving ‘CUD’ label to an individual who doesn’t represent the party.
Explaining about the international diplomatic community’s role in the May 2005 election, Dr. Yakob said that they did they best they could. “Perhaps they couldn’t do much, after all this is a sovereign country and in fact, at one point, the P.M had said ‘Uncle Sam can go to hell’” added Dr. Yakob,” I think they did their best but the government was adamant that it wouldn’t give on any of its positions or to any negotiation.”
Further explaining the role of the European Union and the American government, Dr. Yakob stated that he believes that the European Union did the best under the circumstances. “As it is to be recalled, after we were arrested, they demanded the unconditional release of the detainees which Amnesty International classified as political prisoners. They even applied some sticks,” said Dr. Yakob,” the Americans from the beginning made it very clear that the legal process should be expedited and that the trial should be undertaken quickly, knowing the kind of the courts we had.”
Further pointing out the American role,” The Americans of course, are out to protect their own interest and definitely this preceded our right to being released. They didn’t demand our unconditional release like the Europeans,” stated Dr. Yakob,” One of the pillars of the foreign policy of the American government is protection of human rights and they didn’t meet that obligation. They sacrificed the protection of human rights in Ethiopia to their interest in fighting terrorism. So the Americans were, right from the very beginning looking out for their interest at our expenses. Even it was no obligation with out compromising their interest; they could have made some dents in the protection of human rights and in the release of political prisoners. I don’t think Americans have been faithful to their creed when it comes to Ethiopia. “
Ambassador Vicki Huddleston, the US Ambassador to Ethiopia during the May 2005 election, told Capital that at the time she felt that the US and the European Community had done everything possible to bring the two sides together.
“Suspicion and public posturing overcame the negotiations with the return of Hailu Shawel,” stated the former acting Ambassador,” In retrospect both sides needed more time, more patience, and above all a greater willingness to compromise.” Ambassador Vicki added that her objective was to support the Government of Ethiopia in finding a way forward that would allow the Opposition to have a voice in governance and prepare the way for both more political space and economic growth.

The Human Rights Situation in Ethiopia

ETHIOPIAN HUMAN RIGHTS COUNCIL

EHRCO stands for democracy, the rule of law and the respect of human rights

EHRCO
The Human Rights Situation in Ethiopia
29th Regular Report
January 2008
Introduction
The Ethiopian Human Rights Council (EHRCO) in this 29th regular report assesses the general human rights situation in the country. The human rights violations incorporated in this report have not been covered by any of EHRCO’s preceding reports issued until the end of December 2007, and are compiled based on complaints received from victims, evidence gathered through onsite investigations and testimonies of eyewitnesses.
Table 1 Human Rights Violations incorporated in the Report
No.
Type of violations
Extent of damage
Page
A
Extra judicial killings
17 (see the details of nine of them in section 2, page 29 and 31)
2
B
Beating and torture
16
4
C
Rape
1
9
D
Violation of the right to freedom of expression
1
9
E
Illegal detention
􀂃 Detained and released
Still under detention
244
59
185
9
F
Enforced disappearances
3
19
G
Threats and intimidation
3
19
H
Unlawful dismissal from job
24
20
I
Denial of justice
2
23
J
Enforced isolation from social life/property damage/looting
6 families
24
Part Two: Rights violations associated with ethnic conflicts
Killings, destruction of property, eviction, enforced isolation from social life, etc
26
1
Part One
Various forms of Human Rights Violations
A. Extra judicial killings
Article 3 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), which Ethiopia has endorsed, provides that everyone has the right to life. Article 6(1) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) to which Ethiopia is a party, states that every one has a natural right to life. Likewise, Article 15 of the Constitution of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia (FDRE) also recognizes the right to life.
However, in violation of the aforementioned provisions of the country’s constitution and of international human rights instruments, the following persons have been killed.
On 5 August 2007 on the excuse that the day was the last day before the start of the fasting period for orthodox Christians, prison officials allowed alcohol to get into the premises of Mota Prison, East Gojjam Zone in the Amhara Region ignoring rules that prohibit the use of alcohol in prisons. In the festivities, the prisoners got drunk. At around 5:00 p.m., a brawl ensued between the inmates and the prison guards, and as result the following five inmates were killed. The families of the late victims reported to EHRCO that they were not allowed to take the bodies of their loved ones and they later heard that all five men had been buried in one grave. The details are presented below.
1. Bamlaku Azmeraw Worku: 29, He was from Amhara Regional State, East Gojjam Zone, Huleteju Enessie Woreda, Mota town, Sona Medhanealem Kebele Farmers’ Association. He was running a private business going to prison in 2006 suspected of killing a police officer. Hw was awaiting trial. On August 5, 2007, at about 5: 00p.m., he was shot and wounded by prison guard for allegedly trying to escape from prison. The prison guards kept on beating him with butt of the guns and truncheon until he died. He was then buried in the Mota Giorgis cemetery. Family members of the deceased reported to EHRCO that they were not allowed to take the body of late Bamlaku, and was buried with other four inmates killed in a similar account. Police have also refused to give back the personal effects of the deceased unless the family produced a letter from the Kebele stating that the deceased was killed because of his own fault. The mother of the deceased further reported that she put under detention for a day and were insulted and intimidated for asking the body of her son.
2. Yeshiwas Mekonnen : 50, He was from the Amhara Region, Ense-Sar Midir Woreda, Borebor Bete Midir Kebele. He was the head of a seven-member family, and member of the Coalition for Unity and Democracy Party (CUDP).He was arrested for allegedly concealing firearms in his house. On August 5, 2007 at
2
about 5:00 p.m., he was shot dead by the prison guards for allegedly to escape from prison. His body was laid to rest in the same condition as the late Bamlaku (stated in No. 1 above). The family of the deceased reported to EHRCO that the prison administration refused to hand over the personal effects of the deceased to them unless they produced a letter from the Keble stating that the late Yeshiwas had died on his own fault.
3. Ambelu Gedefaw: 48, He was from Amhara Region, East Gojjam Zone, Enessie Sar Midir Woreda, Shewa Kebele Farmers’ Association. He was also a member of CUDP. In January 2006, he was shot by police and arrested for allegedly concealing firearms. On August 5, 2007, at about 5:00 p.m. he was shot dead by prison guards for allegedly trying to escape from prison. He was buried in the same condition as Bamlaku and Yeshiwas (No. 1 and 2 above). His family reported to EHRCO that the prison administration refused to hand over the deceased’s personal effects to them unless they produced a letter from the Kebele stating that Ambelu had died on his own fault.
4. Jemberu Yibeltal: 24,He was from Amhara Region, East Gojjam Zone, Enessie Sar Midir Woreda, Jan Gebeya Kebele Farmers’ Association. He was a member of CUDP, and arrested being accused of hiding firearms. On August 5,2007, at around 5:00p.m. , he was shot dead by prison guards for allegedly trying to escape from prison. His family reported to EHRCO that, he was buried in a similar condition as the other victims mentioned above. They also said that the prison administration refused to hand over the personal effects of the deceased to them unless they produced letter from the Kebele stating that the Jemberu had died on his own fault.
5. Nigat Settie: He was from Amhara Regional State, East Gojjam Zone, Enessie Sar Midir Woreda, Yizana Kebele Farmers’ Association. He was in Mata prison for reasons EHRCO was unable to establish for the time being. On August 5, 2007, at about 5:00p.m., he was shot dead by prison guards for allegedly trying to escape. As his family reported to EHRCO, he was buried in the same conditions and in the same grave with the other victims mentioned above.
6. Zerihun Abate: 17 He was a resident of Oromia Region, East Wollega Zone, Guto Wayu Woreda, Nekemt town, Kebele 09. On 29 April 2007 at about midnight, he was shot by a police officer on his chest and died instantly. Although the killer was put under control, he was not formally charged by the time this report was being compiled.
7. Aregash Gebremariam (F): 45, She was a resident of Somali region Jijiga town. On August 17, 2007 she was brutally stabbed to death by a member of the Somali ethnic group who had a long-standing claim to the house she was living in. The deceased reported the threats to her life several times to the kebele office as well as to the police but nether acted in time to prevent
3
her death. After her death her house was broken into in the night of 3 September 2007 and property belonging to her was looted. After this incident her family, reported the house breaking to the police and requested the police to seal off the house to prevent further break in. The region’s Police Commission wrote a letter to the kebele to seal off the house as per the request of the owners but kebele officials refused to comply with the order saying that the letter should have come from the Regional Council, not from the police. IT was learnt that the killer was not apprehended and brought to justice by the time this report was being compiled.
8. Ehite Getahun (F): She was a resident of Somali regional state, Jijiga town, On August 17, 2007, she was stabbed to death along with the late Aregash (No. 7 above) by the same assailant.
B.

ETHIOPIA | Trends in Conflict and Cooperation

The EPRDF continues to dominate the political landscape, while the legal opposition is on the defensive driven
by internal conflict and suffering from the absence of a clear vision and strategy on how to effectively confront the
ruling party. While the government has toughened its stand on its dealings with the legal opposition, the run-up to
the local, district and by-elections for the Addis Ababa Council and the parliament scheduled for next year already
has began amid vociferous complaints by the opposition of unfair treatment. Internal and external actors had put
pressure on the National Election Board of Ethiopia (NEBE) and on the government to reform the electoral law as a
precondition for fair elections in the future, but it seems that yet again the electoral process will only exacerbate
the conflicts between the government and its political opponents.
The internal split of CUD representatives in national parliament continued to fester with the leadership of both
factions resorting to the courts to win official recognition as the leadership of the party. Long-simmering conflicts
among the released CUD leaders openly erupted during their long tour abroad in North America and Europe. The
released leaders not only failed to resolve differences between the two wings of the external leadership but
became fractured into two bitterly opposed factions each aligned with one of the external factions. One faction is
led by Hailu Shawl, chairman of the CUD, and the other by CUD’s Vice-President Birtukan Mideksa and Berhanu
Nega. Underlying this split are personality issues but also different concepts on how to lead and to reunify the
CUD. The splits within the CUD "family," the political mud-slinging, and the whiff of a financial scandal deeply

Police shoot dead more protesters in day two of demos

By Standard Team

The toll of those whose lives were brutally brought to an end by police rose to more than 10, on another day of mass protests coupled with a drastic international response to the post-election crisis.

For the second day running, members of the ODM Pentagon protesting against the December 27 presidential election they say was rigged were dispersed with teargas and gunfire in Nairobi as police again resorted to force to subdue demonstrators.

Scenes of vicious police action were enacted in Kibera and Mathare slums in Nairobi, Kisumu, Narok, Homa Bay and Eldoret towns.

Protesters block a road leading to Kibera slums, in Nairobi, on Thursday.
Other places rocked by demonstrations included Voi, Mwatate, Taveta, Nakuru, Molo, Keringet and Litein, while Mombasa and Kakamega were relatively calm.

On Thursday, police again chased ODM leaders from central Nairobi and maintained a tight ring of officers around Uhuru Park to bar them from entering.

The officers teargassed members of the public in Nairobi streets, and clobbered people randomly — including lone passersby who seemingly posed no threat at all.

As police heightened their crackdown on demonstrators, the Government faced international pressure as the European Parliament said all European budgetary aid to Kenya should be frozen until the crisis over President Kibaki’s disputed election is solved.

Police condemned

In Nairobi, the Government faced severe censure and criticism from ODM leaders led by Mr Raila Odinga and from various groups for the brutality employed by police in dealing with the riots.

ODM accused police of arbitrary execution of peaceful demonstrators across the country and alleged that the party politicians were being targeted for assassination.

But Police Spokesman Eric Kiraithe, while denying that the force was using excessive force to quell mass protests, declined to comment on the assassination claims.

The accusations’ came in the wake of the mysterious murder of a driver for the Kasarani MP, Ms Elizabeth Ongoro, on Thursday.

And Police barred journalists from entering Kibera where more than 100 GSU officers descended into the slum’s alleys, firing bullets and teargas.

Journalists saw police officers beating up protesters with gun butts, kicking down doors and hurling teargas into houses.

Witnesses said they saw four bodies lying in the slum’s alleys.

In Mathare slums, two more people were shot dead.

The bodies were collected by police moments after the shooting, amid shouting from locals who accused them of extra-judicial killings.

Police shot dead another youth in Kisumu in a fresh flare-up, bringing the death toll in the battered lakeside town to six in under 24 hours.

Master Bernard Ochieng was shot dead next to the Kisumu Molasses Plant, where protesters used tyres and electricity poles to light bonfires barricading the

Kisumu–Busia Highway.

Kiraithe also confirmed that two more people had been shot in Kisumu as they reportedly tried to set ablaze oil tankers.

Tear gas in hospital

In Homa Bay, police chasing protesters threw teargas canisters into the district hospital while in Eldoret, a similar police attack was mounted against Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital.

Thick teargas smoke wafted through wards and offices at the Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital, choking patients.

A contingent of the GSU also opened fire from G3 rifles, sending over 500 patients, nurses, doctors and members of staff into panic.

Nurses and security staff also said the invading force was in GSU uniform but they did not communicate in Kiswahili and were also asking staff to identify their tribes.

Violent drama similar to that of Wednesday was re-enacted in Nairobi as anti-riot police teargassed some members of the ODM Pentagon and chased them out of town.

Fumes of teargas pervaded the CBD and gunfire rattled the centre of town as police chased away pedestrians caught unawares by the arrival in town of the ODM team.

ODM MPs Mr William Ruto, Mr Najib Balala, Mr Ayiecho Olweny and Mr Omingo Magara managed to drive up to Kimathi Street at about 2pm before tens of anti-riot police spotted them.

The four walked up to Wabera Street as a crowd started building up behind them, but were intercepted by Central Police Station OCPD Mr Titus Kilonzi, who saw them and shouted into his walkie talkie: "They are here!"

Anti-riot officers went running at them and hurled teargas at their feet. They also shot several rounds of live bullets over the MPs’ heads, with one empty catridge falling just by Ruto’s shoes.

The leaders ran towards City Hall Way where they hopped into their vehicles. They were driven round to Kenyatta Avenue where Balala alighted, but he was met with a cloud of teargas hurled at him.

The ODM team drove back and alighted again near the Hilton Hotel, where they were joined by MPs Mrs Charity Ngilu, Mr Reuben Ndolo, Mr James Orengo and Mr Joe Nyagah.

Police charged at them again and dispersed a crowd that was milling around them. They jumped back into their cars and headed back to Pentagon House.

Chaos ensued in downtown Nairobi as anti-riot officers turned on crowds and chased them towards River Road.

Nairobi streets remained deserted as pedestrians scampered into buildings or ran to safety out town.

kenya in chaos

WHEN DICTATORS REFUSE TO ACCEPT THEIR DEAFET THIS WILL OCCUR. THE LIKES OF MELES ZENAWI SHOULD BE ACCOUNTABLE FOR THEIR BEHAVIOR.

Kenya's humanitarian crisis grows

familliar pictures??????? ETHIOPIA JUNE 2005

Kenya's humanitarian crisis grows

The UN says half a million Kenyans urgently need help


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At least 180,000 people have been displaced by unrest as the humanitarian crisis grows after last week's disputed election in Kenya, say UN officials.
Some have been housed in makeshift camps while others have sought refuge in police stations or churches, fleeing violence that has claimed 350 lives.

In badly-affected western Kenya nearly all the refugees are hungry, and several children have died of exposure.

A top UN official in Nairobi says about 500,000 Kenyans need urgent help.

The latest developments came as anti-government protests fizzled out and the president said he might accept opposition demands for a fresh election, but only if ordered by a court.


See Kenya's ethnic divisions by province
The UN World Food Programme said it was struggling to get food to 100,000 hungry people forced to flee their homes in the Rift Valley area.


We are profoundly alarmed by the reports of incitement to racial hatred and the growing frictions between the different ethnic groups in Kenya

UN rights experts' statement


Can Tutu heal the wounds?
Diplomacy falters
In pictures: After the violence

The International Committee of the Red Cross issued an urgent appeal for more than £7m of aid.

The BBC's Karen Allen in the Rift Valley town of Eldoret, where at least 30 people were burned to death in a church this week, says 30,000 local people have been displaced.

Some 10,000 people there are seeking refuge in the compound of the cathedral of the Catholic Church, which is now spearheading local relief efforts.

A statement by a group of independent UN rights experts on Friday said: "We are profoundly alarmed by the reports of incitement to racial hatred and the growing frictions between the different ethnic groups in Kenya."

The officially-declared results of the 27 December presidential poll - giving victory to incumbent President Mwai Kibaki over opposition rival Raila Odinga - unleashed a wave of violence.

'Blackmail'

Protesters furious at alleged electoral fraud went on the rampage, killing scores of people and torching churches, businesses and homes.

The opposition Orange Democratic Movement party has laid down four conditions to resolve the political deadlock.


Kenya has been dogged by ethnic tensions since independence

They want Mr Kibaki to stand down as president; an international body appointed to adjudicate in the dispute; and in the meantime, a transitional authority established to oversee steps to condition four: a new presidential election in three months' time.

A Kenyan government spokesman, Alfred Mutua, said the opposition's three-month deadline smacked of "blackmail".

He told the BBC: "What we are clearly saying is that Kenya is not a banana republic, Kenya is not a war-torn country.

"We have court systems and laws and orders and what we are saying is that let things follow the procedures like they do in other countries with constitutions."

South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu met Mr Kibaki on Friday and said the president was not averse to the idea of a coalition.

In other developments:


Top US diplomat Jendayi Frazer arrived in Kenya for talks aimed at bringing the two sides together

The unrest hits Kenya's tourism as visitors cut short holidays


UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon urged calm in separate telephone conversations with Mr Kibaki and Mr Odinga

French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said he believed the Kenyan elections had been rigged.
A massive security force presence on Friday prevented opposition demonstrators from holding a mass rally in central Nairobi but there were clashes in the eastern port of Mombasa and the western city of Kisumu.

Kenyan politics has been dogged by ethnic tensions since independence in 1963.

Mr Kibaki depends for support on the largest ethnic group, the Kikuyus, while the western Luo and Kalenjin groups - who seek greater autonomy - back Mr Odinga.

World leaders deplore chaos in Kenya

By Ben Agina

Several world leaders have reacted to the violence arising from the disputed presidential elections in Kenya.

According to Los Angeles Times, US President George Bush called on both President Kibaki and ODM leader Raila Odinga to reach a solution.

"It's very important for the people of Kenya to not resort to violence," Bush told Reuters news agency in an interview at the White House. "I believe that they have an opportunity to come together in some kind of arrangement that will help heal the wounds of a closely divided election."

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said the U.S. was not prescribing what the solution should be.

"They do need to come together, they need to broker some political solution to the political crisis. . . . They are going to have to define that."

South African Nobel laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu, one of the international figures trying to help mediate, said Kenya's stability had been damaged.

"This is a country that has been held up as a model of stability. This picture has been shattered. This is not the Kenya that we know," Tutu said in Nairobi.

And the Daily Telegraph reported that Prime Minister Gordon Brown has called for President Mwai Kibaki and the popular opposition leader, Raila Odinga, to work together to ease tensions.

"I want to see the possibility explored where they can come together in government," he told reporters.

"The reason is the violence must come to an end. There has been criticism of the election procedures. I think it is important all sides must recognise that by working together we can make progress."

David Miliband, the British Foreign Secretary, said both rival leaders had "major responsibilities" for the violence, and called on them to find "common ground" to heal their country's divisions.

"I very much hope that both Mr Odinga and President Kibaki will realise that actually there is nothing to be gained by either of them in pretending that this is cut and dried," he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme, adding that there was evidence of vote-rigging by both sides.

The Canadian Minister for Foreign Affairs, Maxime Bernier and Beverly J, Oda the International Co-operation Minister said: Ò Canadians are shocked at the horrific deaths of people taking refuge in an Eldoret Church as well as at the loss of life elsewhere in KenyaÓ.

They said Canada is very concerned about the number of Kenyans displaced in their own country because of violence and lawlessness.

The World Bank said on that the unrest threatened KenyaÕs impressive recent economic growth and poverty reduction, citing business leadersÕ estimates that the country was losing some $30 million a day.

And the ills here are hurting the entire region. Gas stations in Rwanda are now rationing fuel because their supply from Kenya has been cut.

In Uganda, Sudan and Congo, displaced people are running low on food because United Nations relief trucks cannot get past vigilante checkpoints.

''Production in places like Tanzania is slowing because materials that come from Kenya have not arrived. Kenya is the dynamo of this whole region," said Harvey Rouse, a diplomat for the European Union.

Mr. Rouse spoke from a hill overlooking an enormous slum where the police were battling protesters.

Somali insurgency to intensify

The military wing of Somalia's Islamist movement plans to intensify its offensive against government troops and their Ethiopian allies, a senior commander said on Sunday.

In his first comments to Reuters since going into hiding a year ago, Muktar Ali Robow said al-Shabab had killed nearly 500 Ethiopian soldiers and would fight until foreign troops left the Horn of Africa country.

"We are now planning to launch the most enormous attacks on the government and Ethiopian main positions. We will allow no foreign forces in our land," Robow said in a phone interview.

"In the past days the infidel troops of Ethiopians along with their puppets and al-Shawab al-Mujahideen have fought heavily in Mogadishu. We have raided the enemies' military bases showering them with mortar shells," he said, referring to his "Movement of Young Mujahideen" faction.

Robow did not give away his location, but said he was in the southern Bay province of Somalia.

Also known as "Abu Mansoor", Robow was the Islamic Courts' deputy defence secretary before the movement that ruled Mogadishu and most of south Somalia for six months was ousted by allied Somali-Ethiopian forces in the New Year.

His al-Shabab has since spearheaded an Iraq-style insurgency, waging near-daily roadside bombings, grenade attacks and shootings against government and Ethiopian positions.

The conflict has killed 6 000 civilians this year, according to a local human rights group, and forced hundreds of thousands to abandon their homes and livelihoods in what the United Nations calls Africa's worst humanitarian crisis.

Support
Robow said Somalis backed the insurgency and denied reports his fighters were shelling Mogadishu's main Bakara market.

"We are financially and morally supported by the population," he said. "We have the people's allegiance. We would never shell Bakara. But the Ethiopians know that the market is the main source of revenue for the Somali people. They needed justifications to destroy that source."

Robow also dismissed reports al-Shabab had recruited boy soldiers to fight. "It is not Islamic, even our Prophet, Muhammad ... did not send youngsters to jihad. We do not arm children with bombs or grenades to go into a war."

Robow dismissed as "lies" a report by Ethiopian Information Minister Berhan Hailu that 75 al-Shabab fighters were killed in a surprise attack on their secret hideout this week.

He urged new Prime Minister Nur Hassan Hussein to quit and said his group's intention was to rule Somalia by sharia law.

"When we force Ethiopia to withdraw its troops from our country, its traitors will follow and the people will be able to embrace an Islamic government," he said.

"Democracy is not right. They call it democracy when a man marries another man and a woman marries another woman. How can such things be allowed to happen?"

The Somalia Islamic Courts Council (Sicc) had run widely despised warlords, who enjoyed United States backing, out of Mogadishu in June 2006 with decisive victories.

Many Somalis credited Robow's Sicc with bringing a semblance of order to the capital Mogadishu. But its attempts to enforce strict sharia law in the moderate Muslim country drew rumblings of discontent after they banned Bollywood films and khat, a mild narcotic leaf chewed throughout the Horn.

Somalia has been plagued by anarchy since warlords toppled military dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991. The interim government's efforts to restore central rule have largely been paralysed by infighting and the Islamist-led insurgency. - Reuters