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American journalist Will Conners' test of TPLF brutality

By Will Connors

Posted Wednesday, Sept. 5, 2007, at 12:23 PM ET
When an American reporter started digging, he was forced out of Ethiopia.

I had fallen in love. Ethiopia does that to people. It sneaks up on you with its lush, mountainous landscape, its delicious coffee, its beautiful people as warm and welcoming as any in the world. And before you know it, you're sitting in a restaurant in New York or Nairobi, and all you want to do is speak Amharic, taste injera, and drink honey wine.

During post-election demonstrations, at least 30,000 people were arrested, and more than 100 were killed. Snipers[Tigrayan] were used on protesters. All the top opposition leaders were arrested, as was the mayor-elect of Addis Ababa.

I, too, was arrested. At the time I was working for a regional African newspaper, and I had been caught taking photos of federal police beating young boys. For 12 hours I sat on a dirt floor in an old customs house, and, because I am American, I was largely ignored. The detained Ethiopians were beaten and forced to crawl over sharp rocks and hop up and down on bloodied feet. The lucky ones were released after a few weeks. Others were taken to rural prisons and not heard from for months.

The crackdown was remarkably effective. Fledgling newspapers were shut down, and their editors jailed along with the opposition leaders. Average Ethiopians once again became hesitant to speak out in public about anything potentially sensitive. Government agents are everywhere, friends would whisper to me when I tried to initiate conversations about politics. Read more.....

Problematic Ally

The moral hazards of dealing with Ethiopia's Meles Zenawi

Saturday, July 21, 2007; The Washingtonpost

MORE THAN once during the Cold War, the United States aligned itself with dictatorial or corrupt, but anticommunist, foreign governments, compromising democratic principles for perceived advantage against the Soviet Union. These choices were not necessarily wrong, but each one put the U.S. on a slippery slope, at the bottom of which lay a completely amoral foreign policy.Read more on ...

Ethiopia's freed leader defiant

Ethiopia's opposition leader has hit out at the government just hours after being pardoned and released from a life sentence in jail.

Hailu Shawel said he had signed a document admitting to organising violent election protests in 2005 and asking for clemency "under duress".

The government had come under strong international pressure to free Mr Hailu and 37 others to help reconciliation. Read more on the BBC

U.S. officials negotiated behind the scenes

U.S. officials -- urged on by the Ethiopian immigrant community -- had negotiated behind the scenes for the prisoners' release. Rep. Donald M. Payne (D-N.J.) sponsored a bill in Congress calling for the unconditional release of all Ethiopian political prisoners. Washington post...

38 opposition politicians and activists released after Ethiopian government pardon

The Associated Press

Published: July 20, 2007

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia: Three minibuses left an Ethiopian prison carrying 38 opposition politicians and activists pardoned by the government Friday. Dozens of family members and their supporters outside shouted in joy and whistled.

The politicians and activists were released only minutes after Prime Minister Meles Zenawi told journalists the government had pardoned them. They had been sentenced to various prison terms, including life, for inciting violence in an attempt to overthrow the government.

As their minibuses left Kalici Prison, some of the politicians made the victory sign, which is also the symbol of Ethiopia's opposition. The family members and supporters gathered outside waved Ethiopian flags and also made victory signs. They then pursued the minibuses in other vehicles. It was not clear where the politicians and activists were being taken. Read more on the International Herald Tribune

Pardon for protest Ethiopians

Thirty Ethiopian opposition leaders sentenced to life in prison over election protests are pardoned and will be freed today. Read more on the BBC

Breaking News:-Amnesty board decides for the release of prisoners

USA, 18 July 2007 (EMF) – The amnesty board has made a decision to accept the release prisoners of conscience from kality prison, source from KIL told EMF. According to the source, the board has sent it’s final decision to the president office few hours ago. The symbolic president is expected to sign on the document today and the prisoners will be free in the coming days. KIL was negotiating and working with co-mediator Ambassador Yamamato for the last six months for the releasing of political prisoners. The government of Meles Zenawi is under extreme pressures from international communities, it has been reported. Read more on EMF

Ethiopia's democracy is on paper only

The Wall Street Journal, Editorial
July 18, 2007

Let’s play name-that-state. After the EU declared its 2005 elections flawed, this country’s troops killed 193 protestors and arrested 20,000 more. Last week, 42 of the accused were convicted of inciting violence to overthrow the state (down from an original charge of genocide and treason). Thirty-five were condemned to life in prison and forbidden to vote on Monday. Some of the accused were journalists, so their publishing houses were fined and closed.

Did you guess Ethiopia? Probably not, since this African state has often been held up as a pillar of good governance on a troubled continent. In just over a decade, Ethiopia went from military rule to a parliamentary system. But this democracy is on paper only.

The convictions are not an isolated incident, nor are the 42 defendants just any opposition figures. They include the elected mayor of Ethiopia’s capital, Addis Ababa, a former Harvard scholar and a former U.N. envoy. They’ve been condemned to the same fate, life in prison, as ousted military strongman Mengistu Hailee Mariam, who is held responsible for the murder of 150,000 academics and university students in two decades in power. Read more on Ethiomedia

US officials uneasy about Ethiopia

By Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) - Both the Bush administration and Congress are growing exasperated over Ethiopia's backsliding from democracy but are wary of applying too much pressure against a country that has become an important anti-terror ally in East Africa. Members of the Democratic-controlled Congress are under fewer restraints than President George W. Bush's administration, which has relied on the help of Ethiopian troops in ousting Islamic militants from power in parts of neighboring Somalia. Read more on EthioMedia

Possible release of CUD prisoners rumoured in Addis

onday, July 16, 2007

Case referred to amnesty board

The government media is announcing that the case has been sent to Amnesty Board. So the information I heard earlier is right.

Will Meles release the prisoners?

I may eat my words later. My sources are telling me Meles could give clemency for the prisoners tonight. It isn't yet confirmed, and I don't trust Meles. But that is the news I am getting right now.
I am hearing that the case has been sent to the Amnesty Board. Again, I advise caution. Take this story with a pinch of salt.

Life in jail for Ethiopia leaders

An Ethiopian court has handed down life sentences to all of the main opposition leaders convicted of links to violent election protests in a major trial.

Eight of the 38 opposition figures in court were given shorter prison terms. The prosecution had demanded the death penalty for them all.

They refused to recognise the court, saying the trial was political.

A BBC correspondent says a political process is under way which could mean their sentences are not served.

High court judge Adil Ahmed also barred the 30 Coalition for Unity and Democracy (CUD) leaders from voting or standing for election. Read more on the BBC..........

Breaking News: Court sentences CUD leaders to life(and takes away thier right to be elected or elect)

Monday, July 16, 2007

The Federal High Court today sentenced all CUD leaders who were convicted of outrage against the constitution to life imprisonment. The other nine who weren't in CUD leadership got sentences ranging form 1 year and six months to 18 years imprisonment.

The court also decided to take away the political rights of CUD leaders to elect and be elected. It decided that the judicial interdiction is absolute. It means the interdiction is applicable throughout their life time.

Posted by ethio-Zagol at 2:47 AM

Will the political dissidents be spared?

Ethiopia

Off with their heads, maybe
Jul 12th 2007 | NAIROBI
From The Economist print edition

EARLIER this year, Ethiopian courts released many of the country's most important political dissidents from the grim Kaliti jail on the outskirts of Addis Ababa. They had been there since they were rounded up by police following opposition protests (in which 193 people were killed) against flawed presidential elections in 2005. In another promising sign of reconciliation, charges against the 38 remaining defendants were reduced from treason and genocide to “outrage against the constitution” and “incitement to armed rebellion”.

So it was a real shock this week when the state prosecutor called for all 38 to be put to death. Those facing the firing squad include Hailu Shawel, the elderly head of the Coalition for Unity and Democracy (CUD), the main opposition party, and Berhanu Nega(above), the elected mayor of the capital, Addis Ababa. Read more.....

Former Ethiopian ruler sentenced

Mengistu Haile Mariam is given life imprisonment after his conviction last month for genocide.

An Ethiopian court sentenced former ruler, Mengistu Haile Mariam, in his absence to life in prison for atrocities committed against people during his regime.

But Mengistu remains in exile in Zimbabwe and many Ethiopians feel that justice has not been served.

Reuters television takes a closer look at the situation in Ethiopia.

Ethiopia's democracy on trial

From the BBCAs they turned up in court, expecting to hear their fate, Ethiopia's 38 detained opposition leaders put on a show of bravado.

The CUD leader and principal accused, Hailu Shewal, flaunted a scarf in the colours of the Ethiopian national flag.

One of his colleagues had a ribbon in the national colours tucked into his hatband.
Indeed, the lack of any visible sign of regret for what they had done was one of the reasons cited by the prosecutor for demanding the heaviest possible sentences on those convicted - the death penalty.

In truth, these defendants always seemed like improbable candidates for armed insurrection - elderly professors in tweed or corduroy jackets, earnest young lawyers, a middle aged matron in a suit.

A significant part of Addis Ababa's intelligentsia has spent the past 18 months in jail, facing a hair-raising selection of charges which originally included genocide and treason.

Among them are the president, the vice-president and most of the central council of the opposition CUD coalition, nine elected members of the national parliament, and the man who won the election for mayor of Addis Ababa, Berhanu Negga.

Half a trial
The case goes back to 2005, and that year's elections.
They may have been the fairest held in Ethiopia so far, but the CUD insisted they were still flawed and refused to accept the results or take up the seats they had won in parliament.
The stalemate went on for several months, punctuated by two bouts of violent protest, in which some 193 people were killed, until the government finally seemed to lose patience.

Ethiopians around the world protested at the violence
Although most of the thousands of protesters detained during the demonstrations were eventually freed without charge, the CUD leadership was charged with a whole range of serious offences against the state, as were a number of journalists and publishers, and some other political activists who had no party affiliations.

There were originally nearly 100 defendants, so many that the trial has been held in a public meeting hall in the small town of Kaliti, outside Addis Ababa, near the prison where the defendants were being held.

At every sitting, the prisoners would troop in, filling nearly half the hall, while friends and relatives smiled and waved from the other side of a simple rope barrier.
But for most of the accused it was only half a trial.

The CUD defendants refused to recognise the court, to instruct lawyers or to offer any defence.
Even so the prosecution didn't have everything its own way.

The judges threw out large chunks of prosecution evidence as inadmissible, dropped the charges of treason, genocide, and freed 25 defendants as having no case to answer.

But that still left the opposition politicians facing charges of outrage against the constitution, obstructing the constitution, impairing the defensive power of the state, and inciting armed rebellion.

Since they offered no defence they were found guilty as charged.

Discussions
The official position is that once they have been charged it is a matter for the court, nothing to do with the government, and the law has to take its course.
But at the same time discreet meetings have been going on behind the scenes, looking for a way to resolve the situation.

Now opposition sympathisers are keen to get the trial over and done with, convinced that once the legal process is over, the political process can start, and the way may be open for the possibility of clemency or pardon.

Siye Abraha released day

Tuesday, July 10, 2007

Siye Abraha released
(by Ethio-Zagol)The Federal Supreme Court today sentenced former defense minister Siye Abraha to five years imprisonment on charges of corruption. Since Siye has already been in jail for more than five years, he will be released. Siye, who many suspect, was jailed by the Meles administration because of his serious differences with the Prime Minister on the issues of Ethiopian sovereignty, looked happy when the decision was read by the court.The court sentenced the other defendants on the case, Fitsumzeab Asgedom, Beshah Azmete, Assefa Abaha and Tamrat Layne to five years, eight years, nine years, and three months imprisonment respectively. It means Fitsumzeab will also be released.EZ's verdict:I am still unconvinced that Siye deserves the five years sentence. But expecting justice in Ethiopia at the moment is a joke. So I am glad that he is out.

Dr Birhanu on TPLF's foreign policy

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Kinijit on the anti-Ethiopia foreign policy of the Meles Zenawi regime

ADDIS ABABA - Dr Berhanu Nega, the jailed mayor-elect of Addis Ababa, addresses the foreign policy of the government of Prime Minister Meles Zenawi. The opposition figure blasts the foreign policy of the ruling party as detrimental to the sovereigny of Ethiopia. Latest evidence is supporting the fact that Ethiopians must wake up and face head-on that those in power are mercenaries who value Eritredan independence at the cost of destroying Ethiopia. Watch the video clip.

Do the Ethiopian Diaspora really hold any card in the struggle to freedom?????

It has always been my view that these groups of people could have done a lot more than give simply a lip service to the struggle for freedom in Ethiopia. But the problem seems most of us happen to be part-time freedom & democracy activists and full time self-centred and self enriching talking walking machines.

Well, I am not really naive and extreme idealist when it comes to what people have to do when it comes to earning a living and pay their bills, send their kids to schools e.t.c, and hence I do not really expect every one to devote all their time [100%] to the struggle. But, what is missing is making the struggle part of our living room, day to day life and our second nature.

If we become politicians, whenever it hot up and we loose interest when ever it goes cold, we are really saying that we need some one else to spice it up for us. Who is going to do that for us? I think this has to be the question, every one should ask? And as far as I am concerned no one else is going to do that for you and me. I think what is standing between us and freedom is ourselves. We, each of us are standing on our own way, because we could not see what is missing? Because we could not think, it is US [as in We] who should be holding the torch, and no one else.

What is needed is, for every one to engage with the struggle and take ownership of the problem and contribute what he/she is capable of. This can be done without disrupting ones way of life or living and his/her family. It could be money, it could be ideas, it could be diplomacy, campaign and so and so forth. Which everyway we need to engage and let us not expect anyone else to do the labour and give us what we want.

So, back to the main question. Do we really hold the key to the struggle to freedom? The answer is yes, we partly hold some of the keys, but not the way things are now and not the way the Diaspora conducts its political business. We need to fully engage, work with local groups, come together as one, let us be tolerant of each other, the ZERO sum politics should end and let us contribute with whatever we can, however small it can be, but LET IT BE DONE PASSIONATLY AND WITH COMMUTIMENT. Ethiopia and the people does not deserve part-timers!!!!

On a dilemma in the Horn

Feb 22nd 2007 | ADDIS ABABA
From The Economist print edition

Should the West go on helping a repressive Ethiopia?

THE second most populous country in Africa and one of the poorest, Ethiopia is a test case for the West in its efforts to eradicate extreme poverty on the continent. But its government's undemocratic leanings have presented donor countries with a dilemma. Should they continue to funnel their taxpayers' money to a country that routinely jails and tortures its critics or should they turn off the tap and thereby hurt the blameless poor?

............Meles Zenawi's government is finding it hard to run the show. Some 80% of the people in Addis Ababa probably back opposition parties. In response, the government has become harsher, muzzling free speech and forcing independent newspapers to close. Many journalists are in jail on trumped-up charges. Dissidents have been disappearing, along with critical websites. Telephones are often tapped. For more than a year, text messaging on the country's small number of mobile phones has been hampered by “technical difficulties”.

.........The government keeps up a hum of fear with attacks on opposition supporters. Teachers are a favourite target. Some have been beaten so badly in detention they could not stand up in court. Even schoolchildren have faced the authorities' wrath. In Ambo, west of the capital, some 14 of them in a secondary school were detained; some were allegedly tortured. The usual charges, if brought at all, are sabotage or treason. Suspects are often “found” to have links with familiar bogeymen: neighbouring hostile Eritrea; the Oromo Liberation Front, a movement in the centre and south; or, in the heartland of the once-ruling Amhara around Addis Ababa, “terrorist groups” whose existence is fuzzy. Read more

Ethiopia's agony

An exclusive report on the supposedly model African state, where human rights abuses have continued to grow since May's controversial elections.

Ethiopia's Prime Minister Meles Zenawi has, until recently, been regarded in the West as one of a new breed of African leaders - picked by Tony Blair to draft his Commission for Africa report on how to reduce poverty and promote democracy on the continent. But is he really as progressive as people in the West see him? Watch this channel 4 news special report on Ethiopia and judge it to your self.

Ethiopian invasion of Somalia

Whom shall we believe? Meles or USA? Watch this interesting channel 4news. Who is telling the truth? Melese or J Frasure?