Protest and Government Response in Ethiopia

A snippet of the 14 year experience

It seems every week there is a new low that EPRDF's “revolutionary democracy” takes us to. This week, the regime has turned its face on high school students and kids from elementary schools. Instead of peacefully handling the public protest and listening to what the people are telling it, the regime is bent on imprisoning everyone that is vocal about the regime’s now bankrupt claims of legitimacy. If the authorites only took a moment to think and learn from their 14 year experience, it would have been apparent that the path they have chosen can not lead to a possible solution.

EPRDF's prescription to the latest protests is hardly new. Since its rise to power, the party has made it its job to destroy its peaceful opponents either by using pseudo-legal procedures, sheer brute force or a combination of the two. Since 1991 a large number of people have been abused, detained or have disappeared after detention under EPRDF’s watch.

In 1992 when the OLF left the transitional government, its members, supporters as well as sympathizers suffered at the hands of the regime, some even permanently disappeared. This trend has continued and there have been many documented cases of human rights abuses, including killings and disappearances, perpetrated against the Oromo people, whose legitimate aspiration to power in Ethiopia has been usurped by the TPLF and its creation the OPDO.

In January 1993, Students at AAU were protesting the planned referendum for Eritrea when they were met with bullets. Officialy one death was reported, but students were severly wounded, stabbed and beaten. The university closed for three months. A few months later the President of the University Dr. Alemayehu Tefera was arrested and held incommunicado for over ten years until his release in 2003. Forty one professors lost their jobs when a new government appointed university administration took over.

In 1994 when the AAPO posed peaceful challenges to it, EPRDF responded by charging and imprisoning AAPO members including the leader and founder of the organization Professor Asrat Woldeyes, alleging he incited armed rebellion against the government. He was held in conditions that exacerbated his medical conditions and later led to his death. In 1996 it was Dr. Taye Woldesemayat’s turn, then President of the independent Ethiopian Teachers Association (ETA) which the government had tried to disband and an outspoken critic of government policies. He was accused of an armed conspiracy against the government, and thrown in jail. In 1997, Ato Assefa Maru, a leading member of ETA and a human rights activist, was assassinated by armed security officers in broad day light.

In 2001, when University students protested for academic freedom they were met with a similar fate as in 1993. This time the protests quickly spread to the neglected urban neighborhoods of Addis where unemployment is rampant and dissatisfaction with EPRDF is high. Protests quickly turned violent and EPRDF responded with brute force arresting well over 3000. More than thirty people lost their lives. Professor Mesfin Woldemariam and Dr. Berhanu Nega were imprisoned at the time over charges of inciting violence and creating anarchy - all they did was to talk to students about their rights enshrined in the constitution.

In 2002, many towns in Oromia also witnessed protests by high school students against education and economic policies, the government responded in its usual fasion. Officially five deaths were reported, hundreds more were arrested. The atrocities committed in Gambella in late 2003 which we touched upon in our last post left well over 400 people dead according to HRW. In 2004, the regime cracked down on the Metcha and Tulma welfare organization fabricating charges of terrorism on the part of the prominent Oromo welfare association that has existed since the 1960s. Human Rights Watch calls these charges unfounded. The regime's treatment of journalists over the years has been a matter of much discussion and is extensivly documented with RSF.

The mass arrests, beatings, and killings of 2005 are still fresh in our minds.

We have tried to compile here only some of those events which have been highly publicized. There are many more that we have not mentioned or touched upon. As time passes and one atrocity gets seconded by another, the human mind loses count and those atrocities that happened early on start to fade from memory. Fortunately, EHRCO as well as international Human Rights Organizations such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have documented the repeated abuses and excessive use of force by the current regime to destroy any opposition to it.

Prior to 2005, EPRDF’s constant self promotion, control of information especially from rural areas and the western media’s celebration of its leader also worked to temper the regime’s image. Western governments also fanned the idea that EPRDF at the top levels was committed to human rights. The regime and its western patrons usually agreed that human rights abuses could mainly be blamed on local officials or on the now tired excuse “lack of democratic culture”. Just after the polls in 2005 and before the brutal crackdowns in June, the Prime Minister himself had declared on national TV that all security personnel will be under his direct command. This time around he has no one else to blame.

The people of Ethiopia deserve much, much better than what EPRDF has brought them. Let us all hope that the New Year brings some good things to Ethiopia.

Pictures were originally posted at Ethiopia First News Page.