WASHINGTON, DC – Human rights activists on Thursday burned the Chinese flag to protest Beijing’s support for the Meles Zenawi regime which stands accused of crimes against humanity, war crimes and genocide.
The rally organized by Ethiopian American civic organizations was also a swift counter to a pro-government rally that Meles wanted to demonstrate to the world that his recent 99.6% win at the polls was a measure of his popularity both at home and abroad.
Meles might have expected his money would buy at least a thousand hirelings but his elements trickled to somewhat number between 180 and 220, and most of them are brought in from across the states.
The human rights activists also protested in front of the Ethiopian Embassy, where they warned those who remain accomplices of the regime would one day face the wrath of justice. The activists condemned Meles Zenawi as a mercenary who inflicted lasting damages on the national interests of Ethiopia.
Meles and his few confidantes joined a northern Ethiopian rebel group called TPLF in 1976 as masked mercenaries whose main mission was to fragment and weaken Ethiopia and expedite the secession of Eritrea. After seizing power, Meles turned Ethiopia into a landlocked nation, and his crimes were so serious that he makes sure Ethiopians remain mired in sordid poverty and any food aid be used as a weapon of repression.
Even if Meles Zenawi’s Sudanese counterpart, President Omar Al Bashir, remains a fugitive of the International Criminal Court (ICC) for similar crimes, Meles tries to evade criminal charges by trying to win Western sympathy by, for instance, rendering himself as a committed partner in the war on terror.
In recent years, he lobbied heavily to represent Africa at such high profile summits like G-8 and G-20, where he used the forum to rub shoulders with world leaders and not as a ruthless criminal haunting the life of the Ethiopian people.
“The activists are aware that Ethiopia is under a mercenary rule, and for them nothing comes before forging unity of the Ethiopian people that would dislodge the ruthless group from power,” another activist who took part in the demonstration said. She was speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of government retribution to her family back in Ethiopia.
To a casual observer, the tens of thousands of people who poured into the central square of Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa on May 25 to peacefully celebrate the country’s elections might have been mistaken for a massive symbol of democratic progress in a poor and troubled part of the world. In fact it was quite the opposite… Many of the protesters were paid the equivalent of a day’s wage for a few hours of shouting against Human Rights Watch.”
The group that took to the streets in Washington, DC on Thursday was exactly a replica of the group that was paid to pose as “loyal supporters of Mr. Meles” at the Meskel Square rally in May in Addis.
Earlier on Tuesday, the activists said in their statement:
“By providing military technology, radio and satellite television jamming technologies, the government of China has played a role in the suppression of liberty and basic human rights in Ethiopia. These technologies provided by the Chinese are being used against several independent radio stations, including the Amharic services of the Voice of America and Deutsche Welle. The latest victim of the rogue regime’s airwaves piracy is the newly launched and popular Ethiopian Satellite Television (ESAT),” the activists said in the statement.
“Instead of defending the Ethiopian people in their call for freedom and democracy, due to growing economic interest in Africa, China is colluding with totalitarian regimes that suppress their citizens’ rights and the quest for liberty and democracy in Africa. Instead of empowering Ethiopians in Ethiopia, China is engaged in an exploitative relationship in numerous of its projects throughout Ethiopia in a bid to quench its voracious appetite for strategic resources and cheaper labor in Africa. China is exploiting Ethiopia’s natural resources and hampering the Ethiopian people’s inalienable rights for liberty, justice, and democracy. Chinese firms have been engaged in bribing and corrupting Ethiopian officials.
“We, Ethiopians and Ethiopians Americans, demand that the Chinese government immediately
Cease its support for Meles Zenawi’s ethnocentric regime;
Cease arming and supplying Meles Zenawi’s minority ethnic dominated military;
Cease its support for tyranny in Ethiopia/Africa
Cease its support to Meles Zenawi’s regime in jamming the Voice of America,
Deutsche Welle, and Ethiopian Satellite Television (ESAT);
Respect the human rights of the Ethiopian people, Ethiopian workers employed
in Chinese owned projects in accordance with accordance labor and environmental standards as well as the Universal Declaration of Human rights.
Stop bribing and corrupting Ethiopian officials to get no bid
contracts from the government and dumping their low quality and often dangerous products.
By supporting the Meles Zenawi regime, China is banking on profiting from the triumph of tyranny over liberty and democracy for the people of Ethiopia, as it is doing in much of Africa. China has a terrible human rights record at home and supports human rights violations abroad. It is time for China to stop supporting war criminals like Meles Zenawi, who has been suppressing basic liberties of the Ethiopian people. It is time for China to reassess its dealings with rogue regimes like that of Meles Zenawi of Ethiopia and other African dictators, the activists noted.
