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Yet since the disputed 2005 elections,
around which accusations of electoral fraud emerged alongside mass
demonstrations in protest, political repression greatly increased. In several days of demonstrations in June and
November 2005, government security forces shot and killed 187 people and
wounded 765, including 99 women and several children. Six police officers
were also killed in clashes with demonstrators.
In its most recent Country
Report for Ethiopia, the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Democracy,
Human Rights, and Labor reported human rights abuses including: unlawful
killings, and beating, abuse, and mistreatment of detainees and opposition
supporters by security forces; poor prison conditions; arbitrary arrest and
detention, particularly of those suspected of sympathizing with or being
members of the opposition; restrictions on freedom of the press;
restrictions on freedom of assembly and association; and discrimination
against religious and ethnic minorities, among other human rights
violations.
Amnesty International has
been closely following the subsequent trials in Addis Ababa as they are a
window into overall human rights conditions in Ethiopia. All who have been
on trial were arrested in November 2005 and have now been in prison for over
18 months.
Separately from these
trials, a parliamentary inquiry was established in December 2005 to
investigate the same disturbances. It initially concluded that the security
forces had used excessive force. However, as you know, the chair and
vice-chair of the inquiry fled the country after receiving threats aimed at
making them change their findings. The remaining members endorsed a report
accepted by the Parliament in October 2006 that the actions of the security
forces had been “legal and necessary.” No member of the security forces has
been arrested or charged with any offense.
Defendants are being held in
different sections of Kaliti prison on the outskirts of Addis Ababa.
Conditions in the worst sections are harsh, with severe overcrowding,
inadequate sanitation and poor hygiene. Correspondence is prohibited and
private consultation with lawyers is not allowed. However, families can send
food, books and small items.
The principle remaining
charge against these detainees is “outrages against the constitution.”
Several Coalition for Unity and Democracy (CUD) defendants are also still
accused of “obstruction of exercise of constitutional powers” and “impairing
the defensive power of the state.” The charge of “inciting or organizing or
leading armed rebellion” has been withdrawn from most defendants.
Also separate from the
trials is the likelihood that Prime Minister Meles Zenawi and the Ethiopian
People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) have been attempting to
conflate criticism of their incursion/presence in Somalia with opposition
criticism of the regime overall. The EPRDF is also reportedly intensifying
its censorship of Ethiopian press once again, including blogs.
CUD Trials and Prison Conditions in Addis Ababa
One year after their trial
opened in Addis Ababa on May 2, 2006, 48 members of the opposition Coalition
for Unity and Democracy (CUD) party, human rights defenders and journalists
are still in prison. Most charges carry possible death sentences. They are
on trial for allegedly inciting violence in opposition demonstrations in
2005 protesting alleged electoral fraud.
Amnesty International
welcomes the release of several prisoners of conscience, who included seven
of the 14 journalists from the private media, one of whom, Serkalem Fasil,
was six months pregnant when arrested and denied adequate medical care, and
Kassahun Kebede of the Ethiopian Teachers Association. Several other CUD
members were also released.
Of an initial list of 111
defendants, 76 had been on trial since May 2006, with 25 exiles being tried
in their absence. On April 10, 2007, 28 defendants were freed when the
judges ruled they had no case to answer after the prosecution had presented
its case.
Charges of treason and
“attempted genocide” which had been laid against most CUD officials were all
withdrawn. Other charges were withdrawn from some defendants. Five exiles
still remain on trial in their absence.
Amnesty International is
also concerned about three other concurrent and related trials which are
proceeding in Addis Ababa against dozens of other CUD members, some of whom
are or may be prisoners of conscience, including POC and elected
Parliamentarian Kifle Tigneh. Judges have ignored complaints by several
co-defendants in this trial that they were tortured.
Amnesty International
reiterates its call for the immediate and unconditional release of those
defendants whom it considers to be prisoners of conscience, who have not
used or advocated violence and were peacefully exercising their right to
freedom of expression, association and assembly, as guaranteed by the
Ethiopian Constitution and international human rights treaties which
Ethiopia has ratified.
These POCs include:
- CUD leaders, some of whom
were elected to the federal parliament or Addis Ababa city assembly,
including Dr. Berhanu Negga, an economics lecturer; Dr. Yakob
Hailemariam, a law professor and former UN prosecutor for the
International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda; Ms. Birtukan Mideksa, a
lawyer and former judge; and retired geography Professor Mesfin
Woldemariam, founder and former president of the Ethiopian Human Rights
Council.
- Two civil society activists
and human rights lawyers, Daniel Bekele, policy manager of the Ethiopian
office of ActionAid, and Netsanet Demissie, founder and director of the
Organization for Social Justice.
- Seven journalists from the
independent media who are charged on the basis of published articles
which to Amnesty International’s knowledge did not advocate violence.
We are also concerned about
issues of fair trial and the possible imposition of the death penalty.
I briefly report several
additional areas of great concern for human rights in Ethiopia.
Discrimination against Minority Groups
In 2006 in the Oromia region there were large-scale
arrests during anti-government demonstrations, led particularly by
students. Some protestors called for the release of Driibi Demissie, a
Mecha Tulema Association community leader on trial since 2004. Amnesty
International considers Driibi Demissie to be a prisoner of conscience.
Hundreds of Oromo people detained in November 2005 were
reportedly still held during 2006 without charge or trial, and others were
detained in previous years for alleged Oromo Liberation Front (OLF)
connections.
Numerous people accused of Ogaden National Liberation
Front (ONLF) connections were reportedly detained in the Somali region, and
many political prisoners arrested in previous years were still held without
charge or trial.
In Gambela region there were scores of arrests of
members of the Anuak ethnic group. Hundreds of people arrested during mass
killings in Gambela town in December 2003 were still detained without charge
or trial.
Some 60 peaceful demonstrators belonging to the Sidama
ethnic group were arrested in Awassa and other towns last March.
Ethiopian Military Presence in Somalia
Amnesty International has recently called on the UN
Security Council to protect civilians in Somalia from escalating violence
and deteriorating security that threatens humanitarian assistance. As
security in the capital city of Mogadishu deteriorates and conditions
worsen, the civilian population is facing severe human rights abuses. We are
deeply concerned about this most recent upsurge in violence in and around
Mogadishu and its deadly impact on civilians.
What does this have to do with Ethiopia?
The conflict between Somalia’s Transitional Federal
Government (TFG) and its opponents has caused more than 1,000 deaths since
late February, most of them civilians, killed by TFG and allied Ethiopian
troops. More than 300,000 have fled the conflict—a third of the population
of Mogadishu.
Amnesty International has called on the TFG and the
Ethiopian government, which provides its military support, to protect the
civilian population under their commitments to international law.
The new cycle of violence arose mainly from the
resumption of a TFG/Ethiopian security operation in early April. TFG and
Ethiopian forces are fiercely opposed by remnants of the Council of Islamic
Courts (CIC) and other fighters opposing to the presence of Ethiopian troops
on Somali soil.
Ethiopian troops have been accused of indiscriminate
shelling in civilian population areas, leading to hundreds of civilian
deaths and mass displacement in Mogadishu.
Detention of Foreign Nationals fleeing Somalia
The Ethiopian authorities
have acknowledged detaining 41 of more than 80 people who were arrested
trying to cross from Somalia into Kenya since January 2007, and have said 29
will be released. The whereabouts of the remaining detainees is unknown.
One of those detained,
Bashir Ahmed Maktal, who is of ethnic Somali origin, is suspected by
Ethiopian authorities of having links with the ONLF, and they have
reportedly pressured him to confess this publicly. Amnesty International is
concerned he may be ill-treated or tortured to make him ”confess.” He is
believed to be detained incommunicado at the police Central Investigation
Bureau (Maikelawi) in Addis Ababa, and has not been charged with any
offense.
Two Eritrean journalists who
are also being held, Tesfaldet Kidane Tesfasgi and Saleh Idris Salim, were
shown on Ethiopian TV and on a website called Waltainfo.com on April 13.
They were accused of being Eritrean soldiers sent by the Eritrean government
to fight in Somalia against Somalia’s Ethiopia-supported government. Like
Bashir Ahmed Maktal and others detained with them, they have had no access
to legal counsel or their families, and have not been charged with any
offense.
Ethiopia’s Border Dispute with Eritrea
In regard to Ethiopia’s domestic human rights concerns,
the elephant in any room remains the unresolved border dispute with
Eritrea.
Despite the fact that the Government of Ethiopia has
stated that it accepts the Boundary Commission ruling, it has resisted its
implementation and called for further negotiations. Not surprisingly,
Eritrea has stood its ground and refused to allow the Boundary Commission
ruling to be re-examined. The potential for massive abuses of human rights
and humanitarian law in the event of renewed active combat along the border
is significant. Uncertainty and threats of violence have already had dire
effects on the livelihood, health and right to movement of local
populations. According to a recent Council on Foreign Relations report,[4]
ongoing failure to implement this binding agreement is negatively affecting
the complex and interwoven political dynamics of the Horn.
U.S. Foreign Policy toward Ethiopia: The Need for a
Regional Policy[5]
The U.S. and other western powers have given the
Government of Ethiopia fairly free rein to perpetrate serious human rights
violations with no political or economic consequences. Ethiopia has
developed close ties by way of relief and development assistance, military
cooperation,[6]
and growing U.S.-led counter-terrorism operations in the region.
Not only is the Government of Ethiopia responsible for
obstructing implementation of the Boundary Commission ruling, it has also
recently intervened—with U.S. backing—to determine the outcome of a domestic
conflict between the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) and the Council
of Islamic Courts (formerly the Islamic Courts Union) in Somalia by carrying
out a full scale military incursion. Equally disturbing from an
international human rights perspective, scores of human rights
defenders—from elected parliamentarians to journalists, students, and
opposition party leaders—are still facing unjustified charges in several
concurrent trials dragging on in Addis Ababa.[7]
Consecutive U.S. administrations have preferred to
conduct foreign policy with a cooperative and stable regime in Addis,
despite clear signs of disturbing trends toward political centralization,
repression, shrinking political space for civil society, and an incapacity
or unwillingness to resolve ongoing conflicts with politically marginalized
groups—particularly in the Oromo and Somali regions—which have resorted to
armed violence around the country. The U.S. government has consistently and
unquestioningly provided a range of assistance to the Government of Ethiopia
beyond critical Economic Support Funds, Child Survival and Health, and
Transition Initiatives funding—including Foreign Military Financing (FMF)
and International Military Education and Training (IMET).
U.S. foreign policy’s focus on counter-terrorism has
also played a significant role. It has contributed to the glaring absence of
public statements and policy decisions in response to diminishing political
space and the abusive treatment of prisoners of conscience and other
political prisoners in Ethiopia. Given the close and long-standing
relationship U.S. government policymakers have enjoyed with the Government
of Ethiopia, are we left to assume that they have chosen to ignore
universally recognized human rights norms in exchange for military bases,
political intelligence and the façade of national stability?
U.S. policy toward Ethiopia should make the protection
of all human rights, including the fundamental rights of physical integrity,
expression, assembly and fair trial central to U.S. relations with the
Government of Ethiopia and Ethiopian civil society. And it should
recognize—even if the government in Addis Ababa currently does not—that in
order to achieve Ethiopia’s goal of domestic and border security, both the
Government of Ethiopia and the international community must listen to and
respect the rights of minority groups and opposition parties—and in
particular leading human rights defenders—whose perspectives on national
priorities and the nature of their own rights have been too long ignored.
Any successful U.S. policy toward the Horn that will
promote peace, stability, and human rights not only regionally but also
globally, must begin with a serious and genuine consideration of regional
dynamics, local perspectives on human rights, and the way in which U.S.
policies impact these factors.
Unless the United States develops a comprehensive and
principled strategy that is more sensitive to regional complexities and
fairer to the rights, perspectives and political and humanitarian needs of
the Horn populations and their governments, greater strife and suffering are
likely to result.
Recommendations for U.S. Policy on Ethiopia
Amnesty International calls on the Government of the
United States to:
- Make human rights central to U.S. relations with
the Government of Ethiopia and Ethiopian civil society.
- Request that our new Ambassador take actions
necessary to press the Government of Ethiopia to release all prisoners
of conscience immediately and unconditionally, including the above
named.
- Actively monitor all political trials in Addis
Ababa and other places in Ethiopia, demand that they fulfill
international standards for fair trials, and actively monitor the
treatment of all prisoners of conscience and political detainees.
- Continue to press the Government of Ethiopia to do
everything in its power to avoid conflict with Eritrea and in Somalia
and to protect all citizens in the region.
- Continue to provide the levels of humanitarian
assistance required to provide for the basic needs of the Ethiopian
people.
- Actively support judicial and security sector
reform in Ethiopia.
Download the full text of the above report here.
[3]
As reported by Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the U.S.
Department of State, these violations included mass arbitrary arrests
and detentions, torture, extrajudicial killings, repression of ethnic
minorities, intimidation of students and teachers, suppression of press
freedom, and the less reported practice of targeting peaceful political
opposition in the countryside.
[4]
From Avoiding Conflict in the Horn of Africa by Terrence Lyons
(Council on Foreign Relations Press, December 2006).
[5]
Please see upcoming article in the Africa Policy Journal,
“Regional Politics, Human Rights and U.S. Policy in the Horn of
Africa,” by Tricia Redeker Hepner and Lynn Fredriksson, for further
analysis on the need for a regional U.S. policy for the Horn.
[6]
By way of example, Ethiopia contributed troops to the Coalition of the
Willing during the 1991 U.S.-led Gulf War with Iraq, and the U.S.
maintains military bases in eastern Ethiopia.
[7]
Amnesty International has always considered the original charges
against all of these individuals—including treason and other capital
offenses—to be without merit, and has called for the release of all of
these individuals, whom the organization has designated prisoners of
conscience
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