Ethiopian Americans Denounce the Recent Sham Elections in Ethiopia and Call on the US to Change its Foreign Policy towards the Tyrannical Rulers
Ethiopian Americans held a successful demonstration across the street from the State Department in Washington and the White House on June 14, 2010 expressing their outrage at the sham national elections in Ethiopia which saw the ruling party and its allied parties seize 99.6% of all parliamentary seats in the federal parliament, and fully control all regional parliaments.
A large number of Ethiopian Americans marchers started the protest in front of the State Department and walked to the World Bank and to the White House carrying signs, banners and flags of the United States and Ethiopia, requesting the US law makers to re-evaluate their relationship with Ethiopia’s dictatorial rulers who are destabilizing Ethiopia and the Horn of Africa. Several numbers of protesters traveled from New York, Boston, Atlanta and North Carolina to be a part of the successful demonstration in Washington.
Representatives of the protesters delivered a letter addressed to the Secretary Hillary Rodham Clinton that demands the USA uses various avenues of leverage and diplomatic pressure to bear heavily on the Ethiopian repressive regime so as to help usher in a peaceful transition from dictatorship to democracy. The letter also emphasized that true, lasting and robust security in the country and the region emerges when one stands on the side of the Ethiopian people, not on the side of an authoritarian regime which oppresses the people.
Organizers of the March want to take this opportunity to thank all of the participants of the protest, in particular those freedom riders who come all the way from NY, NC, GA and MA to participate in the demonstration for their effort in promoting human rights, democracy, justice, freedom in Ethiopia and protecting the USA’s national security interest.
The June 14, 2010 demonstration was organized by several civic and political Ethiopian and American organizations.
