The regional government, however, said only one person was killed in the clash in Nazret, a teeming business town 100 km south of the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa.

The site of the clash called Gemb was proposed by the government to be leased to investors, which the shop-owners contend as untrue.

“If money was all what the government was seeking from investors, we had previously submitted applications to lease the land, and run our businesses without disruption,” one businessman said.

“They had no investors. All what they were planning to do with the area was to destroy our lifeline and hand the area over to its party members,” he added.

Observers said the bloody eviction was a government retribution against the business community – a stronghold of the opposition Coalition for Unity and Democracy Party CUD-Kinijit, which was publicly acclaimed as winner of the ill-fated May 15, 2005 national elections.

The business district of Gemb, near Nazret Bus Terminal, was cordoned off by police even two days after the clash.

In office since the downfall of the Derg on 28 May 1991, Prime Minister Meles Zenawi continues to hang onto power by sheer use of brutual force, which has convinced Ethiopians to take up arms as the only ticket to freedom.

Earlier on Sunday in the Swedish capital of Stockholm, a number of Ethiopian rebel group leaders agreed to mobilize their combatants under a joint command.