United States Urges Peaceful Dialogue in Ethiopia

04 November 2005
United States Urges Peaceful Dialogue in Ethiopia
State Department calls for independent inquiry into demonstrations
By Charles W. CoreyWashington File Staff Writer
Washington -- The United States continues to urge both the government and political opposition in Ethiopia “to resolve whatever differences they may have through peaceful means,” State Department spokesman Sean McCormack told reporters November 4.
Speaking at the department’s daily press briefing, McCormack said: “It furthers no one's cause to try to manipulate situations in order to provoke a violent reaction. We think that peaceful dialogue is the way to resolve what is in fact a political issue.”
McCormack said the United States has “also urged those who were elected in the opposition to be allowed to take their seats not only in the governance of Addis Ababa, but as well in the parliament.”
The spokesman told reporters that Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs R. Nicholas Burns had spoken earlier in the day by telephone with Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi.
“Our understanding is that … for the moment … in terms of violence in Addis Ababa, the situation has calmed somewhat. But we underlined the importance, as I did yesterday from the podium and the day before … that anybody who might have been arrested in these demonstrations for political reasons should be released immediately.”
Burns, according to McCormack, also told the Ethiopian leader that anyone who is accused of perpetrating any acts of violence in the demonstrations should be granted the full rights under the judicial system, have a speedy hearing of their cases and that those cases proceed in a transparent manner.
McCormack provided a summary of the immediate situation:
• Prime Minister Meles and his party won a hotly contested national election in May. Despite strong gains in the polls by opposition parties, final electoral results gave Meles' ruling party control of 60 percent of the parliament.
• Violence erupted after weeks of allegations by the opposition that the ruling party had intimidated voters and rigged the elections to hold onto power in the Horn of Africa nation.
Asked if the United States condemns the use of excessive force, McCormack said: “We think that violent provocations and the use of violence is not the way to resolve what are political differences. The deaths as a result of the actions surrounding these protests are senseless -- these are senseless deaths, and they're tragic.”
OBJECTIVE EXAMINATION OF FACTS NEEDED, MCCORMACK SAYS
In an effort to sort out what happened during these protests, McCormack said the United States has called for the establishment of an independent inquiry.
“We believe that is the way to move forward. ... And once you determine the facts, if there are those who are responsible for acts of -- these acts of violence, if they broke laws, they need to be held to account," he said.
“But you know,” he continued, “violence is not the way forward for either side.” The United States, he said, calls upon both sides to “engage in a peaceful dialogue, to back away from the use of violence [and not] to try to provoke the other side into violence.”
Asked if the State Department has been in contact with the political opposition in Ethiopia, McCormack said: “I know our people on the ground in the embassy … have been in contact in recent days with both sides. But I don't know specifically if they were in contact with those people who were arrested.”
McCormack said there were reports that there were violent clashes between protesters and police, and that police responded with the use of live rounds. He called those reports “disturbing.”
“In order to sort out the facts surrounding these protests and the violent actions that occurred around them, we think that the inquiry is the right way to try to get at those facts, in a sort of objective manner, to find out exactly what happened,” he said.
In terms of the actions along the Ethiopian-Eritrean border, McCormack said: “It's important to … step back and understand what some of the current tensions are about. There's a line of demarcation that was drawn by the U.N., and I think that there was some difference of opinion on part of that.”
In terms of recent actions, McCormack said: “I understand that the Eritrean government banned some flights of the U.N. monitoring mission. And there have also been reports of troops' redeployments along the border. We think that Ethiopia has redeployed some troops along the border, and we have seen that … at this point it is unclear whether or not Eritrea has redeployed troops along that border.”
McCormack again counseled: “This is a situation where there has been a history of violence. But you know, through the good offices of the U.N. and others, they were able to step back from that violence, and there has been a period of relative calm along that border and while you've had that U.N. monitoring mission in there.”
Currently, McCormack told reporters, the United States is “in contact with the United Nations. Secretary Rice spoke with Secretary-General [Kofi] Annan about this issue recently. And it's something that we're watching closely.”
Under Secretary Burns had some discussion about the issue with Prime Minister Meles that same morning, McCormack told reporters, and “Burns underlined that we are going to be looking with the U.N. at ways that we might help both sides de-escalate from the situation now, where there seems to be tensions are rising along the border, along that line.”
Asked if Burns had any plans to travel to Ethiopia, McCormack said, “I don't believe he has any plans at the current time to travel there, but we're looking at what we might do in conjunction with the U.N. on the issue.”
(The Washington File is a product of the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)