Eight former UN peace-keepers reportedly executed in Ethiopia

Dejen Radio

May 18, 2006

Ethiopian peacekeepers arrive in Tapeta, Liberia (3 January 2004: UN photo)

QUIHA, Northern Ethiopia (Dejen Radio) – Eight Ethiopian soldiers who had served as UN peace-keepers from Rwanda to Liberia were reportedly executed by the government as ring-leaders of mutiny, according to sources in the Ethiopian Ministry of Defense.

The sources told Dejen Radio over 200 others were currently being held at a maximum prison in Quiha, a small town 10 km southeast of Mekelle, capital of Tigrai region.

Those already executed and those awaiting death were a part of an eight-hundred member Ethiopian soldiers who had completed their duties as UN peace-keepers in Rwanda, Burundi and Liberia.

Sources said the executions were over pay disputes between the government and the former UN peace-keeping soldiers. According to the sources, each peace-keeper is supposed to be given a monthly stipend of $ US 1200 dollars while on a peace-keeping duty. However, when the soldiers tried to collect the money while on a tour of duty, the Ethiopian regime told them that it would keep the money for them until they returned to their home country. The reason given to the soldiers was that if they receive the money directly while on Peace Keeping mission, they would spend it and return home empty handed to their families.

Upon returning to their country, the soldiers requested for their money but the regime of Meles Zenawi refused to pay them in full. Out of a total sum of $122,000 Birr (about $15,000 U.S. dollars), which the average UN peace-keeper earned for a year-long peace-keeping service, only $20,000 Birr (About $2300 U.S. dollars) was paid out to the soldiers. The rest of the money was reportedly pocketed by the regime. When the soldiers demanded for full pay, the regime ignored their demand. That is when the soldiers blocked the road from Goha Zion to Addis Ababa and demanded for their hard earned money. Terrified by the bold demand of the soldiers, the regime of Meles Zenawi proposed a negotiated settlement designed to trick the soldiers into laying down their arms.

Before the proposed negotiation started though, the government appealed to the soldiers that an Eritrean attack was imminent and had to be deployed to Tigrai, closer to neighboring Eritrea. The soldiers were transfered from Goha Zion, about 150 West of Addis Ababa, to Wukro town in Tigrai, 840 km north of Addis Ababa.

Once the soldiers reached Wukiro, the regime of Meles Zenawi mounted a massive crackdown on the soldiers, and demanded that they hand over the “ring leaders.” Simultaneously, the regime of Meles Zenawi waged a massive propaganda campaign within the entire Ethiopian armed forces accusing the UN Peace Keeping Returnees of violation of military law and of inciting mutiny. After a month long of intense campaign of defamation, terror and intimidation against the UN peace-keepers by the regime, eight of the supposedly “ring leaders” disappeared, and were reportedly executed by the regime.

The sources urge United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan to immediately intervene to save the lives of the former UN peacekeeping soldiers by sending a fact finding mission to Ethiopia, and to interview members of the peace-keeping units outside the reach of Meles Zenawi, preferably in Europe.

Ethiopian troops on the rampage over pay
AFP: July 3, 2005

ADDIS ABABA — More than 100 Ethiopian peacekeepers on Sunday blocked traffic for more than six hours at a major highway north of the capital Addis Ababa demanding to be paid their peacekeeping benefits, officials and witnesses said.

The peacekeepers, who arrived in the country last week from a mission in Liberia, caused a major traffic snarl-up on the main road linking the capital to the northern town of Gojjam.

“About 150 army men carrying guns blocked us from going to Addis Ababa or from Addis Ababa up north for hours at Fitch,” said Derje Belay a truck driver, referring to the northern town some 100 kilometres (60 miles) from the capital.

The peacekeepers during a flight aboard a UN helicopter in Liberia (UN photo)

“They were not aggressive and did not say anything to us,” Dereje said. “They simply asked us to stop and turn off our engines.”

General Alemu Ayle, an official with Ethiopia’s defence ministry, confirmed the soldiers’ demo, but said the soldiers went back to their camps after the salary stand-off was resolved.

“Some 150 soldiers who served in peacekeeping in Liberia tried to block a road in the north of Addis Ababa in a misunderstanding in the modality of the payment of their benefits,” Alemu said.

“We agreed with them that their bonuses for their service in peacekeeping mission will be paid in cash for those who want to do so and into bank accounts by cheques for those who prefer that,” he added.

Ethiopia’s Information Minister Bereket Simon also confirmed the incident, but denied it had anything to with the country’s current election dispute.

“It has nothing to do with current political activity in the country,” Bereket said. “It is purely a management problem with a group of people in collecting their benefits from their peacekeeping service.”

“They have the right to demand their benefits because they deserve it and definitely they will get it in the modality they wish, it was just a matter of misunderstanding,” he added.