Urgent appeal to Ethiopian legal professionals

By Abayneh Woldemariam (Austin, Texas)

February 24, 2006

You name any sort of human rights violations and murderous atrocities, and Meles and co has committed them all on a massive scale. Every International human rights organization known to man, the US State department and the diplomatic and Foreign Service departments of many western nations, every credible western and other media outlets have documented and reported these massive abuses throughout the last 15 years. The courageous Ethiopian Human Rights Council has also credibly and meticulously documented many of the human rights abuses, extra judicial imprisonments and murders of civilian men, women and children throughout the 15 tragic years. The EHRC’s witnessing, evidencing and documentation of the human rights violations by Meles and co has been done under the most prohibitive circumstances, but still in a manner that will stand scrutiny by any internationally accepted legal process that would bother to review and adjudicate it’s findings.

Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch among others, and many other wire services and credible news organizations have also been documenting specific cases of abuse, unlawful imprisonments and extra judicial murders including genocidal acts perpetrated by Meles and co. Some of the reports by these organizations contain first hand witnessing, photographs, video footage, victim interviews…etc.

The mass imprisonments, tortures and murders of course took unprecedented heights in Addis Ababa following the aborted May 2005 elections. By official count, more than 80 civilian demonstrators and other young people peacefully going about their business in their neighborhoods were shot in the head and in many cases in their backs as they were fleeing marauding special forces, while the few local policemen either looked away or stood by sad and distraught. Hundreds more were wounded and crippled and continue to suffer and die from their injuries. Even small children, mothers and old people who “got in the way” were not spared. Elected members of parliament and regional assemblies have also been shot, killed and wounded. A totally unprecedented and mind boggling 50,000 (more according to some reports) young people were summarily snatched from their homes and thrown in malaria infested death camps and remain there to this day.

A significant number of these events took place in May and November 2005 in a very public way, in broad daylight and at a time when there was significant international focus and on-the-ground witnessing of what was taking place in the country by many international bodies, foreign envoys and international reporters from various media outlets.

Again, a significant portion of these abuses and murders have been well documented, witnessed and evidenced by the EHRC, International human rights groups and news organizations. Some of the reportage and documentation is again evidenced by first hand witness reports, official hospital reports, video footage and victim interviews. The news archives, special reports, photo and video libraries of many international news organizations are littered with vast quantities of reports and incriminating direct and indirect evidence of the horrendous atrocities against the Ethiopian people directly perpetrated by Meles and co. If one Googles ‘human rights violations and abuse’ and drills down for a short while, one would again come upon an enormous amount of evidentiary reportage and documentation on the Ethiopian tragedy under Meles and co.

At times, senior TPLF officials and Meles himself have inadvertently given evidence of the atrocities by making direct references to the dozens of unarmed civilian dead and wounded and of the thousands illegally imprisoned, in their grotesque “look, the opposition made us do this” game, directed at the expedient and unscrupulous ears of some western governments and their local envoys.

Furthermore, there are significant quantities of professionally documented and analyzed intelligence reports in the annals of western intelligence organizations that provide irrefutable evidence on some of the atrocities committed by Meles and Co. Western governments have on occasion “cautioned” and on rare occasions “warned” Meles to refrain from brazen abuses on the basis of these intelligence reports. Such intelligence reports are of the quality that sometimes shape major local and foreign policy decisions by these western governments. If legally accessed and made public, there is no doubt that they will provide very influential evidence on the murderous activities of Meles and co. The British government and the EU did not decide to withhold some of their direct monetary support to the Meles government on the basis of innuendo. The US government has officially announced the ceasing of Humvee military truck supplies to Meles due to evidence that they were being used against the civilian population. Although they will not make some of it public unless they are legally bound, they based their decisions on credible and evidentiary reports from their intelligence sources and of course on the basis of the publicly available evidence too.

Last but not least, there are for sure vast quantities of direct and indirect testimony and evidence collected and stored by hundreds may be thousands of victims, witnesses and other individual citizens in the “silent majority” within and outside of Ethiopia (foreigners included). These reports and pieces of evidence are sitting out there waiting to be unearthed only if there is a credible legal effort to bring the perpetrators to justice.

Very importantly, people have to always remember that Meles publicly, and in an unambiguous very clear language declared on May 9, 2005, that he as Prime Minister has taken direct command of the police and security forces of the country for an unlimited period of time. There can be no argument whatsoever that the horrendous shootings, murders and maiming of unarmed civilian demonstrators and passers by on June 7 and 8 were committed under the direct shoot to kill orders of none other than Ato Meles Zenawi. There is also very little doubt that the atrocious murders of another several dozen people in November of the same year in Addis and other cities, and the subsequent illegal and unprecedented mass detention of tens of thousands of young people was again ordered by Meles himself.

Even Meles has not attempted to make the atrocities look or sound like the work of a renegade and trigger happy few. When pressed by foreign journalists, he has made reluctant and preposterous statements like “we regret some of the loss of life… including police men…but we have to maintain the rule of law…two soldiers were disarmed by demonstrators…we have recovered one rifle but are looking for the second one…3 hand grenades were found amongst the thousands of demonstrators…”. He will have to prove those charges and also justify the mass murder of over a hundred people and the mass detention of over fifty thousand human beings from the furthest reaches of the 2 guns and 3 hand grenades.

Of course right after the November murders, and faced with a very peaceful and hard to crack principled stand by the main opposition CUDP, Commandatore Meles summarily ordered the arrest of all the leaders of the Opposition (the vast majority of whom are elected members of parliament) and some key independent media figures and leaders of civic groups. All in all, over 130 of the most well known Opposition figures in the country. Again the arrest of an entire leadership of the main opposition group is unprecedented in any country, even the most despotic ones in recent memory.

Not only were the elected leaders of the country summarily thrown in jail, but in the most preposterous and audacious move by Meles since the elections, they were charged with high treason and genocide by none other than Meles and co, whose hands still drip the blood of the dozens of innocent young people they publicly and brazenly massacred just a few shorts months ago.

The charged also includes voice of america radio reporters and civilian opposition supporters of Ethiopian heritage in the USA. The reporters, for having dared to report atrocities committed at a time when all the local free media had been forcibly muzzled by Meles since May 2005. The opposition supporters, for exercising their inalienable right to support their chosen political groups from a free country that has 11,000 miles oceanic divide from the guns of Meles.

Having been freely murdering, torturing and mass imprisoning untold number of people for the last several months (never mind the last several years), a brutal dictator is preparing for the final showdown. A showdown in which the world will witness the most ludicrous and grotesque sham trials since Soviet and Mao times. A show down in which all the horrendous and sickening atrocities of May 2005, November 2005 and after, will be “legally” attributed to these prisoners of conscience, these ardent advocates of democracy, these relentless teachers of peaceful struggle and justice, these elected leaders of the people, these long time academics, lawyers, human rights advocates and other professionals who have shunned and abhorred violent politics all their lives. The trial will likely be deliberately dragged on for a long time, and those who survive jail will be given severe sentences perhaps including death.

Long before the first charges on these people were read in his kangaroo courts, Meles has told the world in a press conference in Germany that these people are absolutely guilty of all the crimes they are charged with and that “he personally may not wish it…but they can be given death sentences…”.

Let me now go back to the first part of my appeal above in which I have detailed the various sources of extensive and repeated reportage, and direct and indirect evidence on the atrocities committed by Meles and co over the last 14 years, and more recently since May 2005.

My fervent appeal to the Diaspora Ethiopian Legal Community and like-minded foreign legal professionals is as follows.

You must believe that there is great value to filing a class action lawsuit against this brutal regime and particularly it’s singularly murderous chieftain Meles Zenawi. How many of us can continue to sleep well having continuously witnessed not only the unabating murder of our innocent brothers, sisters, mothers and fathers; but the even more atrocious and sickening “charges” against our very own elected leaders who courageously struggled for democracy and progress in a determinedly and utterly peaceful manner to the very end. Even worse, they are charged by the very man who is singularly responsible for the massive atrocities which he has now audaciously charged them with. Is this any less than Hitler charging Jewish leaders with the holocaust?

How many more of the brave and innocent sons and daughters of our proud but tragic country have to suffer and die in the hands of the brutal dictator, be it shot by his murderous guns or his even more painful and grotesque “legal charade”? Doesn’t the tragic murder of the many we have lost before, not the least of which was the peace and human rights torch bearer, the preeminent teacher and physician of generations, Professor Asrat Woldeyes weigh heavily on our minds? How about the courageous Ethiopian Bar Association whose almost entire membership courageously volunteered to defend our elected leaders and are now loosing their livelihood, and some even being imprisoned for daring to defend them?

Our Ethiopian legal community in the Diaspora and like minded ‘foreign’ legal professionals; I am imploring you to immediately begin your legal research into filing mass murder charges against Meles Zenawi and his henchmen in judicial jurisdictions in the United States and Europe who you know allow legal charges against foreigners in other lands especially those charged with mass murder. We all know that some US federal courts have in the past and present allowed charges to be heard against such individuals. We also know that some jurisdictions in Europe especially Belgium and Spain also allow legal hearings on the evidence against brutal dictators. These courts have held hearings on charges against many dictators including Pinochet, Suharto and others.

These courts may not in the end haul Meles to their chambers in handcuffs, but the very filings and hearings will send a clear message to Meles that he cannot continue to murder our people with absolute impunity.

Not only that, but the hope it will ignite in our people just by virtue of the media attention it will surely generate will be incalculable. It will also be a tremendous encouragement to the courageous and true sons and daughters of Ethiopia in the Diaspora who have been braving all sorts of difficulties and relentlessly raising their voices and cries for justice in all Western capitals for nearly a year now.

Last but not least, it will send a clear signal to all that the innocent young people and others who were massacred by Meles, and whose blood still stains the gurneys of our hospitals and the streets of Addis and other towns did not die in vain, and that our elected leaders who are languishing in jail are not suffering in vain.

My dear brothers and sisters in the legal bars of the Diaspora, I say do it! Sue the murderer! Let him get a whiff of the very justice he has denied for so long to the innocent in our land! If you let him go, if you don’t do it now, you and I may not live to see justice and peace in our country. Justice and peace cannot be brought about with just the sacrifice of others; it will never happen if we all don’t throw in our contributions. I know that patriotic web outlets like ethiomedia, ethiopianreview and others can help with advertising the cause and the fund raising information for this effort!

In 1936, a patriotic Ethiopian leader implored the world from the podium of the League of Nations “What should I take back to my country? What should I tell my people?”. He rests in peace now and his name continues to invoke sharp jolts of justice and fairness in many matured political circles. You should say to yourselves “What will I tell my children?”. In explaining his eventual entry into politics, one of our current patriots Berhanu Nega once said, “…More than anything else, it was the stark recognition that the only truly valuable virtue I can really pass on to my children is an unshakable sense of freedom and justice…that compelled me…”. Berhanu of course went on to being overwhelming voted in as the first freely elected Mayor of Addis in the history of our country. He kept his promise and taught his children that there is no alternative to freedom and justice by standing firm to the end. But should he pay the ultimate sacrifice without an all out struggle by those of us who have not yet made that very basic human commitment?

Thank you in the name of all the deceased and those who continue to suffer under the murderer.

Ethiopia will surely rise again but it is a tragedy to not lift a finger in that cause!

Abayneh Woldemariam
Austin, Texas

The writer can be reached for comments at [email protected]