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March 22, 2004

PRESS ROUND-UP


Parliament drops demand for Gambella genocide inquiry,
Student Unrest continues

By EthioMedia Staff Writer: March 22, 2004

ADDIS ABABA – The federal parliament discarded a demand to set up a commission of inquiry into the Gambella genocide in which independent sources assert over 600 people were killed.
Federal Affairs Minister Abai Tsehaye said his government was a defendant in the killings and there was no need to investigate the crimes.

He said government forces carried out what they were ordered to do: save civilians from the people-on-people killings. Opposition leader Dr. Beyene Petros, a voice often drowned out in an ocean of a rubber-stamp Parliament packed with political appointees loyal to the ruling party of Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, proposed, a special inquiry commission be formed to establish the role the troops played in the massacre, and to set the exact record of those who perished in the massacres.

Debol Manwal, a native and MP from Gambella region, warned the house to be fair as government troops were heavily involved in the mass killings of the ethnic Anuaks. He said most people were shot to death. Attempts to resolve the Gambella crisis before its deadly outcome fell on deaf ears, Manwal said. Dr. Beyene on his part said the deathtoll stood at 606, and responsibilities cannot be evaded because the parliament chose to kill investigation attempts.

(For further readings, visit Genocide Watch)

MORE SCHOOLS JOIN ANTI-GOVERNMENT PROTESTS

ADDIS ABABA – Student unrest in most towns of Oromia region of Ethiopia has continued as more schools join the protest sparked when the government expelled 300 Oromo students from Addis Ababa University a month ago. The student unrest sweeping much of the region is focused on forcing the government to lift the restrictions the government imposed on the expelled students as the well as to reverse the decision of transfering the capital of Oromia from Addis Ababa to Nazret. (The two reportes were compiled from the online Reporter: March 21, 2004)

GOVERNMENT TALKS TO HUNT DOWN PROTEST LEADERS

ABIY ADI, TEMBIEN, Northern Ethiopia – The government is discussing on how to crack down on individuals who led a public rally in this town last week and demanded the government stopped its repressive and isolationist policies which cut off the Tembien Province of Tigrai region from basic services like water, electricity and roads.

In a March 22 interview with the Voice of America Tigrinya Program, the individuals said their demand for basic services in the province was ignored time and again by the ruling regime and the people had no choice but to express their anger through peaceful protests.

“If it were not for the people of Tembien who are vigilantly keeping an eye on those who are out to get us, the government would have thrown us into jail. Right now, they are at a meeting, and they are discussing ways to hunt us down. We would see where this would lead to,” one of the speakers told VOA.

The Abi Adi Protest, in which over 5,300 people took part, signifies the political challenge Prime Minister Meles Zenawi faces in Tigrai, which is the seat of the ruling Tigrai People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), which, observers say, the premier used as an Eritrean Trojan horse to secure the independence of Eritrea and the weakening of Ethiopia as a landlocked nation on the one hand, and when the going gets tough, as a strategy of plunging the country into ethnic conflict as the cases of targetting Oromo students and ethnic Gambella inhabitants testify.

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