UN: Ethiopia, Eritrea Still a Concern

By JUSTIN BERGMAN

The Associated Press
Monday, July 30, 2007; 7:18 PM

UNITED NATIONS -- The U.N. Security Council said Monday the lack of progress on resolving the divisive border issue between Ethiopia and Eritrea remained a cause of "deep concern" and called on both countries to immediately withdraw their troops from the frontier.

The 15-member body voted unanimously to extend the 1,700-member peacekeeping mission in the tense buffer zone between the countries for another six months.

Eritrea gained independence from Ethiopia in 1993 following a 30-year guerrilla war, but the border between the countries was never officially demarcated. Another war broke out from 1998-2000, killing tens of thousands, and tensions have occasionally flared since then.

In an apparent breakthrough last month, Ethiopia agreed to accept an international boundary commission's ruling on the border dispute, which awarded the key town of Badme to Eritrea. But Eritrea dismissed the move, saying Ethiopia had attached conditions to the decision.

Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi then told parliament that he was building up the army's capabilities because he fears an imminent attack by Eritrea. He also accused his neighbor of arming rebel groups inside his country.

In its resolution Monday, the Security Council demanded that Eritrea withdraw its troops and heavy military equipment from the buffer zone and Ethiopia reduce the number of additional military forces it has recently sent to areas next to the zone.

It also called on both sides to "show maximum restraint and refrain from any threat or use of force against each other."

The resolution welcomed the pledge by Ethiopia to accept the border commission's 2002 ruling, but demanded the country take "concrete steps" to enable the commission to demarcate the border as quickly as possible.

A 2005 U.N. resolution called for a 620-mile buffer zone between the two countries, but in the past year Eritrean forces have moved into the zone and have stymied efforts by U.N. peacekeepers to monitor the area. The Security Council has repeatedly called for Eritrea to lift its restrictions, including its ban on U.N. helicopter flights and night patrols.

Washington Post

Plight of ethnic groups in Ethiopia discussed at U conference

By Abdi Aynte , Minnesota Monitor

15,000 Oromo in Minnesota include many victims of torture, persecution.

Seldom does a former head of state express remorse about crimes committed under his watch, but that's exactly what Dr. Negasso Gidada, the former president of Ethiopia, told more than 100 people Thursday evening at the University of Minnesota.

Speaking at the Oromo second annual international human rights conference, Gidada said he's "ready to be accountable for crimes I committed … and those committed by the Ethiopian government" during his tenure.

Most of the people in attendance were Oromo, the largest of Ethiopia's 86 ethnic groups. Gidada also is an Oromo, but the current regime is dominated by a minority ethnic group called the Tigre. He held the largely ceremonial post of president between 1995 and 2001.

Now an opposition member in the Ethiopian parliament, Gidada admitted that the "rule of law was enforced brutally" while he was president. But he reiterated that he couldn't stop most of those crimes, because the power lied with the Tigre prime minister.

More than 15,000 Oromo refugees, the largest anywhere in the country, live in Minnesota, according to the Oromo-American Citizenship Council, which helped organize the event.

The State Department's human rights index ranks Ethiopia, a close U.S. ally in the war on terror, as one of the worst human rights violators in the world. Oromo-Americans said they are particularly disappointed with how the United States turned its back on the protection of human rights in their country.

Ethiopia is already fighting a proxy war for the U.S. in Somalia, said Professor Abdi Samatar, a panelist who teaches geography and global studies at the University of Minnesota.

"With blessings from Washington, the Ethiopian military killed thousands in Somalia since January, displaced 450,000 and destroyed one-third of Mogadishu's infrastructure," said Samatar, who studied Ethiopia closely as a Fulbright scholar seven years ago.

A study by the Minneapolis-based Center for Victims of Torture found in 2004 that 69 percent of all Oromo men and 37 percent of women in Minnesota were victims of torture -- one of the highest percentages among refugees in the state.

`Color of your passport matters'

Minnesota is also home to the largest Anuak ethnic population in the United States. When Ethiopian soldiers were in the middle of killing more than 400 Anuak people in three days in 2003, Obang Metho, executive director of the Anuak Justice Council, called the U.S. State Department.

According to Metho, who also spoke at the event, the woman who answered his 1 a.m. call told him: "'People are killed over there all the time,'" and the phone went dead. Metho, who now lives in Canada, called back five minutes later. The woman chided him but before she could take her next breath, he interjected that U.S. citizens could be among the dead. Then he hung up on her.

The woman called back with a frantic question: "'Do you know where they live? Their Social Security numbers?'" Metho supplied whatever information he had.

Less than two hours later, he received a call from the U.S. embassy in Addis Ababa, informing him that staff members were on the way to Gambella, where the massacre was under way. But they needed his help.

"At that time, I learned that the color of your passport matters," he said.

Hope in legislation

Members of the Ethiopian community in Minnesota and across the nation, who organized a massive rally Thursday morning at the state Capitol, are hoping for eventual passage of a bill that cleared a subcommittee in the U.S. House of Representatives last week.

The bill, authored by Rep. Donald Payne, D-N.J., connects U.S. financial and military assistance to Ethiopia to improved human rights, freedom of the press and democracy.

U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn., who spoke at the Oromo human rights conference through video uplink, told the audience that he supports the bill.

"Those who committed human rights violations ought to be brought to justice," he said.

www.tcdailyplanet.net

Ethiopia turns its critics into untouchables

ZOE ALSOP AND NICK WADHAMS

Special to The Globe and Mail

July 27, 2007

ADDIS ABABA, ETHIOPIA -- Dressed in a black Adidas track suit and seated amid a comfortable clutter of term papers and political science tomes in his modest office at Addis Ababa University, Prof. Merera Gudina hardly looks like a menace. But, ever since he was elected to parliament two years ago, people have been avoiding him.

There was, for example, the time that local mechanics were too terrified to repair his car when it broke down on the way back from his mother's funeral east of Addis.

"The mechanic said somebody was giving him a signal and they ran away and we had to transport the car to Addis," Prof. Gudina said. "What they do is that they don't touch me as a person, but people in contact with me, after I leave an area, they harass them or detain them or whatever they want," he said of government security agents.

Optimistic visitors from the United States, which will give $500-million (U.S.) in aid to Ethiopia in 2008, like to point out that the Ethiopian opposition pulled off a feat that would be unthinkable in America or Europe when they unseated more than 150 ruling lawmakers two years ago.

But civil-society groups and supporters of the opposition throughout Ethiopia describe the country's parliament as little more than a Potemkin village. Prime Minister Meles Zenawi's ruling EPRDF party puts on a show of democracy for international donors, while enacting a brutal crackdown on supporters of the opposition outside of the capital.

Leaders such as Prof. Gudina say they've been denied offices, staff and access to their constituents and the media.

"At this point, Ethiopia has some of the trappings of democracy, but none of the substance," said Bronwyn Bruton, a Program Officer for East and Southern Africa with the National Endowment for Democracy, which gets some funding from the U.S. government.

In the 2005 elections, the opposition made historic gains against the EPRDF, which is dominated by Mr. Zenawi's own Tigray ethnic group.

Hundreds of demonstrators were killed and tens of thousands more jailed, including journalists, the elected mayor of Addis Ababa and the head of the country's only independent human-rights organization.

The government only last week released 38 of the opposition activists who had been tried and found guilty of inciting violence, treason and trying to topple the government, but not before they signed statements admitting their guilt.

While a number of opposition members have boycotted parliament in protest against the election, scores of others followed the advice of Western countries including the United States and took office.

"I can't run away from this place and expect some miracle," said Beyene Petros, who has represented the opposition ever since Mr. Zenawi ousted dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam in 1991.

Mr. Petros has seen so many colleagues jailed or killed that he seems somewhat bemused at his own survival.

"Not me. I'm sort of an alibi for a lot of bad things they do to others. They will say, 'Look, Beyene Petros has been this, he's a fierce opponent, he can say anything.' Instead of coming to me, attacking me, they have gone and killed my immediate associates, they have abducted some. That's not enjoyable position to be in."

The government's true face, people say, is shown in places like Dembi Dollo, a two-day journey from the capital along more than 480 kilometres of dusty, dilapidated roads. Few foreigners visit, and little news emerges from the area.

Dembi Dollo is the political heart of Oromia, Ethiopia's most populous region. It's the birthplace of the Oromo Liberation Front, a group once allied with Mr. Zenawi, but today the largest of half a dozen rebel fronts in the country.

It is here that men who once campaigned for an opposition party called the Oromo Federalist Democratic Movement are still paying the price.

"You can say my home is the prison. I spend a lot of my life in the prison," said one elder who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retribution. "Since 1991, every year I was in prison it's only this time now, this year, I didn't visit the prison."

Though support for the rebels runs high here, the town's elders campaigned for the OFDM, which eschews violence. Unfortunately for them, the local officials of the ruling party do not distinguish between political parties like the OFDM and the OLF, which was branded a terrorist organization by Mr. Zenawi's administration late last year.

The elders had been jailed and followed. Telephone and power lines to Dembi Dollo were cut off. The OFDM's office was vandalized and closed. After an elementary school teacher campaigned for the OFDM, riot police went after his 16-year-old daughter. They broke both her wrists, bludgeoned her in the abdomen and held her for a month.

"When she went to the court, the witnesses are the police who beat her - so how can this be?" said one teacher, who also insisted on anonymity.

Ethiopia's ruling party attributes any heavy-handedness against the opposition to growing pains. "In most cases there are no problems," said Bereket Simon, a senior adviser to Mr. Zenawi. "We feel there might be problems here and there because this is not a mature democracy like that of the West. It is an emerging democracy and we're bound to make mistakes."

Prof. Gudina has kept his full-time job at the university. After seeing 56 members of his party killed amid post-election violence, he says there's very little he can do in parliament, where, unlike representatives for the ruling party, he has no offices, no budget and no influence. "In a year and a half, I've attended five, six sessions, that's all," Prof. Gudina said. "There's nothing there to do. When Meles makes a report, you go so at least people see you are there."

Million Dollars Up for Grabs in Istanbul

While thousands run from one continent to another on 28 October 2007, the elite athletes will be vying to win their share of a $1,001,000 prize purse at the 29th edition of the Intercontinental Istanbul Eurasia Marathon. Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality, the organizer of the event, has nearly doubled the cash prize pool this year in an attempt to make the Istanbul Marathon one of the highest paying marathons in the world. The total payout last year was $572,000, with even a higher raise compared to the prize money of $200,000 in 2005. The first 25 men and 15 women in the marathon will leave Istanbul with their pockets full. Victory alone in both men’s and women’s side will bring the winner $60,000. With a $100,000 bonus for a world record breaking performance and a $10,000 for the course record. The participants of the 15km race and the marathon wheelchair category are also entitled for prizes for their events. The unique marathon, starting in the Asian part and finishing in the European part of Istanbul, also incorporates the Balkan Marathon Championships this year, with also separate prize money for its participants. IAAF

"Marching for the people ... arrested back home"

Oromo people marched to the State Capitol to raise awareness about human rights violations in Ethiopia.

By Ifrah Jimale, Star Tribune

Two thousand Oromo people, part of the largest ethnic group in East Africa, marched Thursday to the State Capitol to raise awareness of human rights violations in Ethiopia.

People came from around the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Europe to march from Dale Street and University Avenue to the Capitol in 94-degree temperatures. Last week and this week have been declared Oromo Week in Minnesota.

"We're marching for the people who are arrested back home," said Kamer Hurumo, holding a large U.S. flag and walking with marchers holding Oromo Liberation Front flags. Hundreds carried signs saying, "U.S., stop supporting Ethiopia."

Oromo people are the majority in Ethiopia but have no representatives in the Ethiopian government, which is ruled by a minority ethnic group.

Thursday's march was organized by the International Oromo Youth Association in cooperation with the Oromo Community of Minnesota and the Oromo American Citizens Council.

"Ethiopian solders who are now in Somalia are committing atrocities against the Oromo refugees in Somalia," said Gawar Mohamed, president of the youth association. "Since Ethiopia invaded Somalia, more than 30.000 Oromo refugees were deported back to Ethiopia. Many of these are in prison now."

Aduu Joba, 20, and her brother Olyad, 19, came from London for the march.

"We have so many relatives back home who cannot demonstrate peacefully like we can," she said.

"Almost every person here today has lost either a father, a mother a sibling or close relatives," said Rammy Mohamed, a student at the University of Minnesota and member of the International Oromo Youth. Her cousin was killed two months ago; he was an engineering student at the University of Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia.

"He had nothing to do with politics and yet he got killed right in front of his family just because he was Oromo," she said.

Oromo people have been experiencing persecution under the Ethiopian Peoples Revolutionary Party (EPRDF) led by Prime Minister Meles Zenawi. Many fled to neighboring countries and settled in refugee camps.

"We hope this is a wake-up call for the international community," Mohamed said.

Ifrah Jimale • 612-673-4165 • ijimale@startribune.com

Deal Near on Food for Sealed Area of Ethiopia

By JEFFREY GETTLEMAN

LAMU, Kenya, July 25 2007

United Nations officials and the Ethiopian government appear to have reached an agreement to allow emergency food aid into a conflict-ridden area that the Ethiopian military has been blockading for several weeks, both sides said on Wednesday.

Villagers in the Ogaden recently counted sacks of grain while rebel fighters watched.

But Ethiopian officials expelled the Red Cross from the same area after accusing its workers of being rebel spies.

According to Nur Abdi Mohammed, a government spokesman, food deliveries will soon begin to most parts of the eastern Ogaden region, which the Ethiopian military has recently sealed off in an apparent effort to squeeze a growing rebel movement there.

“The food distribution has started from the center to different areas,” Mr. Mohammed said. “I think it will reach most places soon. But where there is no security, there will not be deliveries.”

Peter Smerdon, a spokesman for the United Nations’ World Food Program, said that United Nations officials had been meeting with the Ethiopian government for several weeks about access for food aid and that teams had reached most parts of the conflict region to determine how much aid was needed.

“The food is still not there in all the zones, but there is a process under way,” Mr. Smerdon said. “We are working with Ethiopian officials and others on exactly how the food will be dispatched.”

Mr. Smerdon said that with food prices rapidly rising, local markets empty and the flood season beginning next month, there could be a “humanitarian crisis” in some areas unless the military lifted restrictions on food aid and commercial traffic.

The Ogaden is one of the poorest parts of one of the poorest countries, and also the site of an intense insurgency and counterinsurgency.

The most active rebel group in the area, and possibly all of Ethiopia, is the Ogaden National Liberation Front. The government considers it a group of rebel terrorists, especially after members attacked a Chinese oil field in the area in April, killing more than 60 soldiers and Chinese workers. At the same time, human rights groups and villagers say that Ethiopian troops have gang-raped women, burned down villages and tortured civilians.

Several former administrators from the area and a member of Parliament who recently defected have accused the Ethiopian military and its proxy militias of skimming food aid and using a United Nations polio eradication program to funnel money to fighters. The Ethiopian government has denied the accusations and said it was the Ogaden rebels who were stealing food aid and abusing the population. The government has also accused the Front of getting arms and training from Eritrea, Ethiopia’s enemy.

Western diplomats and lawmakers in Congress have expressed concern about Ethiopia’s human rights record. Several measures are moving through the House and Senate that would place strict conditions on assistance to Ethiopia, which receives nearly half a billion dollars in American aid each year.

Western diplomats in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia’s capital, said their biggest issue was the military blockade, which they said was putting hundreds of thousands of impoverished nomads at risk of starvation. Several humanitarian officials have said that they need to temper their criticisms or not speak publicly so as to prevent their organizations from being permanently blocked from the area.

On Tuesday, regional government officials, who oversee the Ogaden, expelled the Red Cross.

“They were spies,” Mr. Mohammed said. “They were following regional officials and relaying information to the rebels.”

Red Cross officials declined to comment, saying they were still negotiating with the government to find a way to stay. The regional government has given the Red Cross, which runs water and livestock projects in the Ogaden, seven days to leave; its projects in other parts of the country would not be affected.

It seems that the Ethiopian government is increasingly suspicious about foreign involvement in the Ogaden, a desert on the Somali border where most residents are ethnic Somalis and where a separatist movement has brewed for decades.

Mohamed Abdi, an Ethiopian-American working as an interpreter for the American military in the Ogaden, has been held incommunicado and without charges in a prison in eastern Ethiopia since he was arrested in early May. Relatives and American Embassy officials said Mr. Abdi, 45, was working on humanitarian projects in the Ogaden when Ethiopian troops detained him and two American soldiers, who were soon released.

The New York Times

Jeffrey Gettleman, Journalist par excellence

Tightening the Noose Around Zenawi

Selam Beyene, Ph.D.

New York, NY 10017

In a series of articles [1,2] published in the New York Times, Jeffrey Gettleman shocked the world with a glimpse of the atrocities committed by Zenawi's regime against the people of Ethiopia.

In so doing, Gettleman not only demonstrated journalistic professionalism of the highest order, but also provided uncommon comfort to the 70 million Ethiopians suffering under Zenawi's iron
rule.

Through a powerful exposition of the brutality of Zenawi and his deceits of the donor community, Gettleman declared: "The Ethiopian military and its proxy militias have ... been siphoning off
millions of dollars in food aid and using a U.N. polio eradication program to funnel money to their fighters..."[2].

What support can one give to such an admirable journalist, who is owed so much by the people of Ethiopia, so that his efforts will not be in vain?

The answer may not be difficult. All genuine Ethiopians should express their gratitude for his Herculean efforts, and provide him with much needed information that exposes the brutality of Zenawi's regime not just in the Ogaden region, but throughout the country.

Gettleman's efforts would bear fruit, and the struggle to free the oppressed people of Ethiopia would be successful, only if the true picture of Zenawi's regime is presented in the proper perspective, without falling in the dangerous ethnic traps that the dictator has wickedly installed for us.

When Zenawi directed one of his attack dogs, Seyoum Mesfin, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, to respond to the first of Gettleman's reports [3], the motive was to divert the focus of the discussion from the absence of human rights and democracy to one concerning the rise of one ethnic group against the rest of "Ethiopia".While fully sharing the pains of our Ogaden compatriots, as we do collectively share the pains suffered by all other ethnic groups across the land, we should guard against the tendency to fall victims to Zenawi's ethnic politics by treating the movements to overthrow Zenawi's dictatorship as isolated movements of disparate ethnic groups against the motherland.

A movement against Zenawi's oppression cannot have a lasting democratic outcome, if it is anchored in an ethnic agenda. The memory is still fresh that less than two decades ago the ethnicbased movements that overthrew the dictatorship of Mengistu Haile Mariam only brought us
equally vicious dictators in the likes of Zenawi and Afewerki.

So, as we applaud Gettleman for his courage, integrity and objectivity in exposing the brutal nature of Zenawi's dictatorship, let's provide our support to him so that he will be better equipped with comprehensive knowledge to more effectively use the power of the New York Times toward the search for a more permanent and lasting solution to the suffering of all Ethiopians: from the Somalis and Afars in the lowlands to the Oromos, Amharas, Gurages and Tigreans of the highlands; and from the Anuaks of the West to the numerous oppressed people of the South.

Interestingly, Gettleman's reports could not have come at a worse time for the brutal dictator, who is cornered like a wounded and dangerous beast with no place to escape:

• At home, he is vilified and humiliated, having been rejected on May 15, 2005 by the people of Ethiopia in a vote of no confidence against his dictatorial and ethnic-based minority regime.

• Abroad, he is considered persona non grata, even by his once-ardent supporters, having been found responsible, by a commission set up by his own government, for the massacre of over 193 peaceful demonstrators and the arrests and torture of thousands of opposition party members[4].

• As recently as July 19, 2007, a U.S. congressional panel approved legislation aimed at supporting democracy and human rights in Ethiopia, and sent the bill to the House Foreign Affairs Committee[5]

• His army is bogged down in a protracted war in Somalia ― a country he attacked although it had posed no tangible danger to the security of Ethiopia.

• Despite the billions of dollars poured into his coffers by donor nations, the economy is in shambles, thanks to blatant nepotism, corruption and mismanagement. According to a recent report[6], the number of Ethiopians living on less than a dollar a day, has nearly tripled since Zenawi took power in 1991 ― a shameful record, especially given the baseline is the discredited regime of Mengistu Haile Mariam.

• Across the land, the flames of inter-ethnic discord he once fanned for the purpose of weakening the Ethiopian nationhood have gone out of his control and are spreading like a wildfire, rapidly engulfing him.
What is the response of the desperate dictator, as the noose is tightening around him from all directions?

True to his roots, Zenawi copied Stalin's formula for the Great Purge, coerced the political prisoners, and forced them to accept accountability for the crimes he committed against humanity.

In his petty mind, the move was intended to serve several purposes:

1. The document bearing the signatures of the political prisoners would serve as a defense
against the inevitable charge for crimes against humanity.

2. The release of the opposition leaders, whose only crime is to have been elected by the people of Ethiopia, would serve to placate donor countries, who have withheld much needed money to finance Zenawi's repressive machinery and to fatten his overseas bank accounts[7].

3. The move is also intended to thwart the ongoing congressional activities in the US to hold the
regime accountable for human rights violations.

4. Most importantly, the alleged confessions and subsequent release of the political prisoners would help to divert attention from the dreaded issue of the illegitimacy of Zenawi’s government.

However, a careful evaluation of the recent unfolding events suggests that Zenawi's wishful thinking has no traction. No credible legal expert would believe that the documents signed under duress by the political prisoners would hold water in a court of law. Despite expensive lobbying[8], the plan to thwart the ongoing congressional activities has also backfired, and Congressman Payne has already declared that he’d still demand that “the killers of the 193 innocent civilians" be held accountable[9].

Thus, given Zenawi's desperate situation, and the abundance of support for the democratic movement, what is the optimal course of action for the opposition?

All genuine Ethiopians in the Diaspora and back home should now seize the moment and keep the pressure on Zenawi. They should set aside their personal, ethnic and political differences, and pool their resources to address the critical questions of the day:

• the return of political power to the legitimate leaders chosen by the people on May 15, 2005, and

• the prosecution of the criminals responsible for the post-election massacre of peaceful demonstrators, for the unjust imprisonment and torture of opposition members, and for the genocide of Anuaks and other ethnic groups.

July 26, 2007
beyene50@gmail.com

References:
[1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9]

Nazret.com

UN and Ethiopia agree on food deliveries to Ogaden region (International Herald Tribune)

By Jeffrey Gettleman

Published: July 25, 2007

LAMU, Kenya: United Nations officials and the Ethiopian government appear to have reached an agreement allowing emergency food aid into an embattled area that the Ethiopian military has been blockading for several weeks, both sides said Wednesday. But Ethiopian government officials expelled the Red Cross from the same area after accusing its workers of being spies.

Nur Abdi Mohammed, a government spokesman, said food deliveries would soon begin to most parts of the Ogaden, an eastern region that the Ethiopian military has recently sealed off in what appears to be an effort to squeeze a growing rebel movement.

"The food distribution has started from the center to different areas," Mohammed said. "I think it will reach most places soon. But where there is no security, there will not be deliveries."

Peter Smerdon, a spokesman for the United Nations World Food Program, said that UN officials had been meeting with the Ethiopian government for several weeks about access for food aid and that assessment teams had now reached most parts of the conflict region.

"The food is still not there in all the zones, but there is a process under way," Smerdon said. "We are working with Ethiopian officials and others on exactly how the food will be dispatched so it arrives with the people who monitor the distribution."

Smerdon said that with food prices rapidly rising, local markets empty and the flood season due to begin next month, there could be a "humanitarian crisis" in some areas unless the military lifted the restrictions on food aid and commercial traffic soon.

The Ogaden is one of the poorest parts of one of the poorest countries in the world, and it is also the site of an intense insurgency and counterinsurgency. According to human rights groups and firsthand accounts, Ethiopian troops have gang-raped women, burned down villages and tortured civilians.

Several former administrators from the area and a recently defected member of Parliament have accused the Ethiopian military and its proxy militias of skimming food aid and using a UN polio-eradication program to funnel money to their fighters. The Ethiopian government has denied these charges and said it was the Ogaden National Liberation Front, one of the most active of Ethiopia's many separatist groups, that was stealing food aid and abusing the population. The Ethiopian government has also accused the Ogaden rebels of getting arms and training from Eritrea, Ethiopia's neighbor and a bitter enemy.

Western diplomats and lawmakers in the U.S. Congress have expressed increasing concern about Ethiopia's human rights record. Several measures are moving through the House and the Senate that would place strict conditions on assistance to Ethiopia, which receives nearly half a billion dollars in American aid each year.

Western diplomats in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia's capital, said their biggest issue right now was the military blockade, which they said was putting hundreds of thousands of impoverished nomads at risk of starvation. Several humanitarian officials have said that they need to temper their criticisms or not speak publicly, or that their organizations might be permanently blocked from the area.

On Tuesday, the Somali regional government, which oversees the Ogaden, expelled the Red Cross, accusing its workers of providing weapons, money and sensitive information to the rebels.

"They were spies," Mohammed said. "They were following regional officials and relaying information to the rebels. We warned them to stop and they didn't."

Red Cross officials declined to comment, saying they were still negotiating with the government in the hopes of working out a way to stay. The regional government has given the Red Cross, which runs water and livestock projects in the Ogaden, seven days to leave the area. Red Cross projects in other parts of the country will not be affected.

5 opposition members plead guilty in Ethiopia but ask for pardon

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia (AP) -- Five opposition members imprisoned since 2005 pleaded guilty Wednesday to attempting to overthrow Ethiopia's government, but asked the judge for a pardon.

Ethiopia pardoned and freed 38 other opposition members in the same case last week after international condemnation and strong pressure from the United States. The detainees were all arrested in connection with deadly election protests.

The five defendants Wednesday submitted a letter saying, "I plead guilty and I don't want to defend the case. I request the court give a judgment on me," High Court Judge Adil Ahmed said, adding that they immediately asked for a pardon.

The defendants are accused of inciting violence in an attempt to overthrow the government. Prosecutors have been pushing for the death penalty.

The opposition won an unprecedented number of parliamentary seats in the 2005 vote, but not enough to topple Prime Minister Meles Zenawi. The opposition claimed the voting was rigged, and European Union observers said it was marred by irregularities.

Last year, Ethiopia acknowledged its security forces killed 193 civilians protesting alleged election fraud but insisted they did not use excessive force. A senior judge appointed to investigate the violence disagreed, saying there was excessive force.

Initially, the opposition leaders, journalists and others were charged with treason, inciting violence and attempted genocide. Judges dropped the treason and attempted genocide charges in April and later that month freed 25 prisoners, among them eight journalists.

In Washington last week, a House subcommittee completed work on legislation that condemns Ethiopia's recent human rights record and opens the door for sanctions. The bill would have to be passed by both houses and signed by President Bush.

Associated Press/ WSVN-TV

Ethiopia deadline for Red Cross

The people living in Ogaden are mostly nomadic

The Red Cross has been given seven days to leave the Ogaden region bordering Somalia by the Ethiopian government.

The ICRC has been carrying out water and sanitation projects there.

An army crackdown in the area after a series of rebel attacks has restricted the movement of essential goods.

The rebel group, the Ogaden National Liberation Movement, accuses the government of blockading the region, and producing a "man-made famine".

On Monday, the New York Times carried an article saying that Ethiopian troops were preventing emergency aid reaching the mainly Somali speaking region.

But aid agencies have been reluctant to complain publicly about the lack of access, fearing that it might compromise their work in the future.

The regional president of Ethiopia's Somali region, Abdullai Hassan, told the BBC that the ICRC had been given seven days to leave the area.

He accused the organisation of collaborating with the enemy and of spreading baseless accusations against the regional government on its website.

Ethiopia's eastern Ogaden region shares a long and porous border with Somalia, and most of its people are of the Somali ethnic group.

The ONLF has fought for the secession of the Ogaden region since the early 1990s.

In April, rebels attacked a Chinese-run oil field killing nine Chinese and 65 Ethiopians.

BBC News

Foreign and European Affairs Minister Bernard Kouchner to visit Ethiopia

Visit of Mr Bernard Kouchner to Ethiopia (Addis Ababa, July 26, 2007)

Foreign and European Affairs Minister Bernard Kouchner will go to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, on July 26.

The visit will start at African Union headquarters with a meeting with AU Commission President Alpha Oumar Konare. Pursuant to the ministerial meeting of the enlarged contact group on in Paris on June 25, the minister will present President Konare with a report on the efforts of France and the European Union to resolve the crisis in Darfur, and will look with him for ways to strengthen the already close cooperation between France and the AU on this issue. The aim will be to prepare with President Konare for the upcoming ministerial meeting of the enlarged contact group in New York at the end of September. Other African issues will also be addressed.

The minister will then meet with Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi for exchanges on bilateral relations and the regional issues.

www.diplomatie.gouv.fr

Atlanta Shooting Leaves 4 Dead

All Said To Be Related, From Ethiopia; 3-Year-Old In Critical Condition

(CBS/AP) An Ethiopian immigrant fatally shot three people and wounded two others before killing himself early Monday at a home in southwest Atlanta, police said.

All of the victims were believed to be related, Atlanta police spokesman Eric Schwartz said.

The gunman was identified by police as Abdulaziz Ibrahim, 52. Officers also found the bodies of Hana Yusuf, 26, and Luna Tesfaye, 24, Schwartz said. Another victim, Mohammad Ibrahim, 28, died at a local hospital while Amir Abdulhakim, 3, was in critical condition and Yusef Ibrahim, 27, was in stable condition, police said.

Police were interviewing a teenage girl who was also in the house during the shooting but was unharmed, and the alleged gunman's wife, who had left home shortly before the shooting.

The shooting began around 7 a.m., Schwartz said.

Neighbor Charlene Weiters said the family moved into the home about 12 years ago from overseas, and still spoke broken English. She said Abdulaziz Ibrahim was a retired manufacturing worker who occasionally gave the neighborhood children small toys and school supplies.

Weiters said she often saw him playing with his grandson in the yard. She said she believed Ibrahim lived in the home with his wife, plus three children, two nieces and two grandchildren.

"We think he was sick, he must have been," she told CBS affiliate WGCL-TV between sobs. "He was so sweet, he was so sweet he wouldn't hurt anybody."

© MMVII, CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.

ONLF seeks U.N. investigation into aid claims

Ethiopia rebels seek U.N. investigation into aid claims

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia: Rebels in eastern Ethiopia called for a U.N. investigation Monday into allegations the government has been blocking food aid to their volatile region for nearly two months.

The Ogaden National Liberation Front, ethnic Somalis who have been fighting the government for more than a decade, said the situation has "reached alarming levels warranting international intervention."

Ethiopian officials denied the allegations. U.N. officials did not immediately return calls for comment.

"There is no food shortage crisis in our region and there is nobody banning food aid to our region," said Jama Ahmed, a vice president of the Somali region whose office is in the regional capital, Jijiga.

An official from a prominent aid organization with offices in the Ogaden said the Ethiopian military has been barring aid trucks since mid-June, when the government announced a crackdown on the rebels. The ONLF attacked a Chinese-run oil exploration field in April, killing 74 people.

"Allegedly people are surviving on camel milk and tea," said the representative, who asked not to be named because of the sensitivity of the issue. She cited employees in the Ogaden.

Another aid group based in eastern Ethiopia echoed claims that food aid was being blocked. Ethiopia, one of the poorest countries in the world, has suffered food crises almost every year since 1986.

Sisay Tadesse, a spokesman for the Ethiopian Federal Disaster Preparedness and Prevention Agency, said his organization is planning to send daily shipment of nearly 3,000 kilograms (6,600 pounds) of food to the region. He said he was not aware of any blockades or impediments to delivery.

Last month, Human Rights Watch accused the Ethiopian army of blocking aid, burning homes and displacing thousands of civilians in a crackdown on the rebels. The New York-based group cited witnesses.

The ONLF is fighting to overthrow the government for what it says are human rights abuses and to establish greater autonomy in the Ogaden, which covers 200,000 square kilometers (77,220 square miles).

Four dead in Atlanta shooting

Atlanta shooting leaves four dead in apparent murder-suicide

By Staff

(AXcess News) New York - Atlanta police say a shooter has killed four people in a home on the Southwest side of the city in an apparent murder-suicide plot with two more wounded, including a preschooler.

The shooting, which took place early this morning leaves Atlanta police puzzled as to what led up to the grizzly event.

All of the victims are apparently related and from Ethiopia, but AXcess News has not able to confirm that information.

The shooter, who took his own life following the murders, was identified as Abdulaziz Ibrahim, 52.

Found dead inside the Atlanta home were the shooter, Hana Yusuf, 26, and a person named Luna whom police could not provide a last name.

A fourth person, Mohmmed Ibrahim, 26, died at Grady Memorial Hospital.

Two others are hospitalized. Police said 3-year-old Amir Addulhakim was in critical but stable condition and Yusuf Ibrahim, 27, was in stable condition.

Axcess News

Rebel Group Urges UN to Probe Ethiopia's Ogaden Region

Ethiopia's Ogaden National Liberation Front rebels are urging the United Nations to launch a fact-finding mission in the Ogaden region to confirm mounting reports that the Ethiopian military is committing war crimes there. International humanitarian and human rights groups have already condemned the Ethiopian government for blocking food aid to large parts of the remote region and causing widespread hunger. VOA Correspondent Alisha Ryu has more from our East Africa Bureau in Nairobi.

ONLF rebels (file photo)

The Ogaden National Liberation Front appealed to U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to send a team of investigators to Ogaden in eastern Ethiopia, where the Ethiopian military is conducting a campaign to crush the rebel movement.

The ONLF rebels accuse the Ethiopian government of Prime Minister Meles Zenawi of using tactics reminiscent of Sudan's counterinsurgency campaign in western Darfur, including allegations that government troops are burning down villages, confiscating livestock and property, making arbitrary arrests, gang-raping women, and murdering innocent people.

Earlier this month, the U.S.-based Human Rights Watch said it had credible reports that Ethiopian troops and its proxy militias are committing serious human rights abuses in the Ogaden, an oil rich-but poor, ethnically-Somali region that has long sought autonomy from Addis Ababa.

But the director of the organization's London office, Tom Porteous, tells VOA that it is still not clear whether the situation there is similar to Darfur because the Ogaden, a remote area around 200,000 square kilometers, has been inaccessible for months. In June, authorities in Addis Ababa briefly jailed several journalists working for the New York Times newspaper, after they visited the region without government permission.

"Certainly, there should be greater access because the reports that are coming out are serious enough that they do warrant careful monitoring," he said. "We do have quite credible reports that the blockade on the region is continuing. It is not total, but it is certainly having a serious effect on civilians."

Last month, the Ethiopian government banned aid convoys and cut off roads into large areas of the Ogaden as part of a three month-long crackdown on the ONLF.

The government denies all human rights abuse allegations and says the blockade is strictly strategic, aimed at preventing arms and supplies from reaching the ONLF, which has been labeled by the government as a terrorist group supported by Ethiopia's arch-rival, Eritrea.

In April, rebels killed 74 people, mostly Ethiopian guards and several Chinese workers, during a raid on a Chinese-run oil field in the Ogaden.

But humanitarian and human rights groups say the blockade has disrupted trade and put hundreds of thousands of people at risk of starvation.

Some have accused the Ethiopian government of diverting millions of dollars in international food aid and other humanitarian assistance to pay its soldiers and local militias recruited to fight the ONLF.

Ethiopia is a key U.S. partner in anti-terrorism efforts in the Horn of Africa - a region Islamic extremists have used as a haven and as a base of operations.

American officials in Addis Ababa say they are taking the reports of Ethiopian wrongdoing in the Ogaden seriously and are trying to investigate the situation.

VOA News

For Ethiopia's Rastafarians, a promise still not fully kept

50 years after forebears migrated to their 'holy land,' believers endure despite the hardships and denial of citizenship for most

By Paul Salopek | Tribune foreign correspondent

July 22, 2007

SHASHAMANE, Ethiopia - The promised land of the world's Rastafarians can be found along a narrow highway in Ethiopia's ancient Rift Valley, a landscape of scattered trees with boles the size of houses and fields of grain that shimmer in the sunlight like a bronze haze.

The setting is beautiful -- Edenic even. But as with the original Eden, it isn't without its pitfalls.

"We've been waiting a long, long time to become Ethiopians," said Desmond Martin, a Jamaican pioneer who settled here more than 30 years ago on land donated by Emperor Haile Selassie. "We love Ethiopia. Ethiopia is our holy land. But we're still not considered to be from this place."

Best known for their reggae music, dreadlocked hair, colorful clothes and copious marijuana smoking, the followers of the Rastafarian faith celebrate one of their major holidays Monday, the birthday of Selassie, the former Ethiopian ruler whom Rastas worship as a black messiah.

But in Shashamane, a roadside town in Ethiopia that the Rastafarians consider their Jerusalem, the festivities will likely be bittersweet.

Almost half a century after the first 12 Caribbean settlers migrated here, advancing a Rastafarian dream that the world's African diaspora must return to the spiritual motherland, few if any Rastas have been granted citizenship.

Worse still, the pilgrims lost more than 95 percent of their imperial land grant during the 1970s, when a socialist Ethiopian regime confiscated all but 30 acres of their holdings. Throw in assorted famines, revolutions, official harassment, deep local skepticism about the divinity of Selassie and persistent suspicion of their religious "herb" smoking, and it is surprising that any still hang on.

Yet about 200 to 300 stubborn Rastafarian families from all over the globe do -- an eclectic community that includes nurses from Caribbean states, clothing salesmen from Britain and artists from the United States. A few have gone into business in Shashamane, opening hotels and food shops. Others have set up tiny development organizations whose walled compounds look like those of any other aid group in Africa, except for the occasional blasts of highly danceable music and whiffs of marijuana.

The local townspeople, who like most Ethiopians tend to be culturally conservative, view the religious pilgrims with a mixture of curiosity and condescension.

"They are good people who think that Shashamane is the blessed land of the blacks," said Taye Kebede, a Sunday school teacher at the town's Ethiopian Orthodox church. "But we do not like their drug use. They are creating a market for marijuana, and our farmers are growing that instead of potatoes."

Kebede also felt obliged to dispute the Rastafarians' perception of Selassie: "We know him better than they do. He was just a king, and toward the end a very autocratic one."



A movement is born

Born in the slums of Jamaica in the 1920s, Rastafarianism began as a black-consciousness movement that deployed Biblical prophecy against the white racism and colonialism of the times. Its early leaders advocated the return of slave descendants to Africa. When Selassie -- then known as Ras Tafari Mekonen -- was crowned emperor of never-colonized Ethiopia in 1930, both he and his country became spiritual inspirations to the movement.

Selassie was never comfortable with Rastafarians' belief in his divinity, historians say. Nonetheless, in the 1950s, he granted the religion's followers 1,250 acres of land for settlement in Shashamane, a savanna town 150 miles south of the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa. Selassie was deposed by a military coup in 1974. The army murdered him the following year, though most Rastafarians believe he is immortal and hence never died.

"Those were the hardest times," Martin, one of the settlers' elders, recalled of the leftist junta years. "His majesty's photos were smashed. We were spat on. I was thrown in jail."

During the 1980s, the Rastafarian community was singled out for ostracism because of its close association with the emperor, Martin said. It shrank to fewer than 50 members. Some sold their clothes to buy food during the country's notorious famines, he said.

Today, under a frail democratic government, life is much better.

The influx of Rasta religious seekers is growing slowly. Many are skilled workers who bring jobs and a trickle of puzzled tourists to bustling Shashamane. Thousands of visitors are expected to flock to the town for Selassie's birthday -- a Rastafarian Christmas that features rollicking reggae concerts. Rita Marley, the widow of reggae superstar Bob Marley, has joined local Rastafarian aid organizations in funding a school and clinic.

Still, for many Rastafarian homesteaders, the lack of Ethiopian citizenship and the loss of their lands continue to rankle.

Notorious for its prickly nationalism, the government is promising to study citizenship for Rastafarians who have been in the country for at least four years. The land, however, is long gone -- carved up and crammed with the mud huts and tiny gardens of local Ethiopians, whose numbers are evenly divided between Muslims and Orthodox Christians.

Not a paradise

"Some people come here expecting a paradise," said Earl "Chips" Sobers, 44, a Rastafarian road worker from the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago who migrated to Ethiopia five years ago. "It isn't. This is lion country. You have to be a lion to live here."

Sobers stood outside the compound of his Rastafarian denomination, the Twelve Tribes of Israel. Its gates were gaily painted in green, yellow and red -- the classic shades of Rastafarianism, which also happen to be the colors of the Ethiopian flag. Local teenagers in tie-dyed shirts and dreadlocks copied from the Rastas ambled past on a road amid the usual African parade of donkey carts and women carrying bundles on their heads.

Sobers called out greetings in what he called "Jamharic" -- a patois of Amharic, Ethiopia's national language, and Jamaican-inflected English. He insisted that all use of marijuana, which Rastafarians inhale to meditate, is kept within the Rastafarians' compounds and tabernacles. But Ethiopian youths offered joints for sale only a block away.

"We love them because they are so peaceful, but our cultures do not always agree," said Saeda Hussein, who runs a small food shop patronized by Rastafarians.

Hussein said she did brisk business with tinned food and packaged cookies -- many Rastafarians don't relish Ethiopia's national food of injera, a sour pancake of slightly fermented flour.

Asked whether she listened to reggae, she wagged a finger, and declared, "No, no, I am a Muslim."

Then she giggled, and admitted she did. But only on the radio hidden under her wooden counter, and with the volume turned way down low.

----------

psalopek@tribune.com

Ethiopia frees 38 Opposition Members

Fri 20 Jul 2007

By Tsegaye Tadesse

ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) - Ethiopia on Friday freed 38 opposition members sentenced to jail this week for treason, inciting violence and trying to overthrow the government, Prime Minister Meles Zenawi said.

Rights groups and donor governments complained the trial was politically motivated and an attempt to dismantle the opposition Coalition for Unity and Democracy (CUD) after they made strong gains at May 2005 elections that spawned deadly protests.

"The pardon is total. They are being freed with their constitutional rights restored. They have committed themselves to adhere (to) and respect the rule of law as well as the constitution of the country," Meles told a press conference.

"They are being released as I speak."

An Ethiopian court on Monday rejected a prosecution attempt to sentence the CUD leaders to death, and handed life sentences to 35 of them. Eight other defendants were given sentences of between 18 months and 18 years.

The sentences following a nearly two-year-long trial were immediately met with criticism from rights groups. The United States, a close ally of Meles, urged clemency.

The defendants were tried after two post-election bouts of violence in which 199 people were killed, 800 wounded and 30,000 arrested, according to a parliamentary inquiry.

"We believe that the sorry saga of the orange revolution is fully behind us," Meles said.

WASHINGTON

The return of their constitutional rights means the imprisoned CUD members, among them elected legislators and the mayor-elect of Addis Ababa, can run for election again.

It was not immediately clear if those who had won seats would be able to take them after their release. They were due to be released from Kaliti prison on the outskirts of the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, on Friday.

"The decision to pardon the CUD members also conveys that there is no sense of revenge by the government," Meles said.

Meles denied influence from Washington, which considers Ethiopia its strongest counter-terrorism ally in the Horn of Africa, had played any role.

"The Ethiopian government isn't willing and is unable to be run like a banana republic from Capitol Hill. Some individuals appear to be entertaining such illusions," Meles said.

It was not immediately clear whether the remaining people convicted in the case, among them opposition members, journalists and rights activists, would be pardoned.

The government has said the clemency appeal of the remaining prisoners out of the 72 convicted would follow, as well as those who are in exile and were tried in absentia.

The Ethiopian government completed the clemency appeal in just five days after the CUD leaders sent a letter admitting their guilt and pledging to respect the law.

The government made the letter public on state television on Monday, hours after the sentences were handed down. The CUD has never confirmed in public the authenticity of the letter, which the government said was received by Meles three weeks ago.

Reuters 2007

Breaking News: Ethiopia Releases Protest Leaders

Ethiopia releases protest leaders

The group had reportedly confessed and asked for a pardon Thirty Ethiopian opposition leaders have been pardoned and freed from prison just days after being given life sentences over election protests. Three minibuses have reportedly left the prison while the group's supporters whistled and shouted for joy outside. The group always said the trial was political and refused to enter a plea, leading to the men's conviction. Ethiopia came under strong international pressure over the trial, and some donors cut aid. But Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi denied that he was following US orders to free the 30 Coalition for Unity and Democracy leaders and six others convicted over the protests. "The Ethiopian government isn't willing and is unable to be run like a banana republic from Capitol Hill. Some individuals appear to be entertaining such illusions," he said. PROTEST SENTENCES In court: Life in jail: 30 opposition leaders 15-18 years: 6 young men for rioting 1-3 years: 2 journalists In absentia: Life in jail: 5 Democracy on trial He also said that some of the international pressure had been "shameful". Among the 30 are CUD leader Hailu Shawel, the mayor-elect of the Addis Ababa Berhanu Nega and several other MPs and councillors from the capital. Five others were convicted in absentia. 'Orange revolution' Mr Meles also said their rights to vote and contest elections would be restored. But he said the MPs had boycotted parliament for two years and so may be unable to reclaim their seats now. Most of those who died were protesters The government had said the 30 had confessed to their crimes and had asked for a pardon. The head of the European Union 2005 election observers in Ethiopia had condemned the life sentences as "farcical" and "inhumane". After the state prosecutor called for the death penalty, the US urged the government to "promote reconciliation" in the final sentence. The government always said it could not interfere in the case until the legal process had finished. Some 193 people died after thousands of people protested against the election results. Most of those were protesters, killed by the security forces. Tens of thousands of people were arrested. "We believe that the sorry saga of the orange revolution is fully behind us," Mr Meles said. The government denied charges of ballot-rigging and points out that it introduced multi-party elections to Ethiopia. BBC News

Local couple adopting from Ethiopia back home, ‘happy’ baby in tow

By Heath Urie

Amelie Helen Cudmore celebrated her very first birthday last Monday In Evergreen, away from the thatched grass huts and scorching desert climate she was born into.

Amelie, born into the Oromo Tribe in the East African nation of Ethiopia, also celebrated her birthday for the first time with loving parents at her side.

Danielle Marquis and Bryan Cudmore of Evergreen adopted the girl from her native country after she was found abandoned at a mosque as a newborn.

Marquis, a 27-year-old attorney and sports agent, decided along with her husband shortly after their marriage at the Evergreen Lake House two years ago that they would adopt their first child.

They chose to pursue a baby from Africa, partly for the couple’s love of world travel, but also because of the estimated 4 million poverty-stricken orphans in need of families there. It took more than a year of paperwork and close to $40,000 for Amelie to finally come to a family in the United States. But, Marquis said it was worth every penny.

“Ethiopia was even better than we thought it would be,” she said. “It was unbelievable. The people are so genuinely nice. Everyone asked us over to their house for dinner.”

One of the first places the couple visited upon arriving in their child’s birth country was the orphanage where Amelie lived. There, they held their daughter for the first time.

“She came right to both of us,” Marquis said. “She fell asleep on Bryan’s lap.”

While waiting for adoption papers to be finalized, the trio had their first bonding experience — at a hotel pool.

“That’s when she came out of her shell,” Marquis said. “That’s really when the three of us were able to bond — playing in the water.”

Later, the parents were able to visit Amelie’s birth city.

“It was in the middle of absolutely nowhere,” Marquis said. “We spent the evening with (Amelie’s tribe). It was the coolest thing I’ve ever done. They live in grass huts and herd goats. All the men had (assault rifles) on their backs, but they were the nicest people on the planet. The people are stunningly beautiful.”

The couple had also spent the year prior to picking up their child collecting school and medical supplies to donate to two local orphanages and hospitals.

They also brought along $5,000 in cash donations, which is about half of what was needed to construct a new orphanage there.

The new facility will be dedicated to Amelie. “She’s the happiest child I've ever met in my life,” Marquis said. “She’s always smiling and giggling. Other than the first day, she’s felt like our kid, and we must feel like her parents.

“I love being a mom, and she makes it easy.”

www.evergreenco.com

US Seeks Clemency for Ethiopian Opposition Leaders

By Nick Wadhams
Nairobi
18 July 2007

Wadhams report - Download 788k
Listen to Wadhams report

The United States is asking Ethiopia to grant clemency to 35 opposition members sentenced to life in prison for their role in election protests in 2005. Many people believe that the group will be freed; yet some in the opposition fear Ethiopia is far removed from true democracy two years after the bloody demonstrations. Nick Wadhams reports from our East Africa bureau in Nairobi.

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack says clemency would help end a chapter of political turmoil and bring the Ethiopian people closer together. The 35 were sentenced Monday, while eight others received lesser sentences.

Ethiopian policemen look at students demonstrating at Addis Ababa University, Ethiopia, 06 June 2005

They are convicted of involvement in demonstrations two years ago in which hundreds of thousands of people protested the results of national elections. Almost 200 people, including six police officers, were killed during the protests.

The trials drew widespread criticism from Ethiopia's opposition, the international community and human rights groups. They accuse Prime Minister Meles Zenawi of using the courts to stifle his opponents.

The critics also point to a wider crackdown against the opposition in Addis Ababa and throughout Ethiopia.

One leading opposition figure, Merera Gudina, says he expects that the prisoners will be freed. But he says that will do nothing to address his concern that the opposition has been frozen out of the political scene.

"Well, it can help the release of the prisoners no doubt about that, but the problem is, I am not sure whether it can move forward, the Ethiopian politics," he said. "The democratic process is generally frozen. As far as the release of the prisoners are concerned, possibly the wind in the city looks like they are going to achieve that. But as far as the larger political process in the country is concerned, I do not think much could be achieved."

The government's move to squelch the protests and its subsequent crackdown has put the United States in an awkward position. The United States is Ethiopia's most important ally and has cooperated closely with it during its invasion of Somalia, which began on Christmas Eve.

U.S. officials have been careful not to speak out about the Ethiopian government's poor human rights record. Washington had not criticized the trials and only expressed concern when prosecutors in the trial asked for the death penalty.

On Tuesday, the state-run Ethiopian Herald newspaper published a letter in which the prisoners acknowledged making mistakes and requested that the government pardon them. The country's president must make the final decision, but the laws gives him almost no power and any release must have Prime Minister Meles' consent.

Opposition party member Merera and others say the letter from the jailed leaders may not be genuine. It could be a new government attempt to taint the opposition and resurrect its image in the face of international condemnation.

"Ethiopian television and radio is in a serious propaganda war against them," added Merera Gudina. "It is not a normal national reconciliation. It looks like the government tries to humiliate them rather than stretch its hand for national reconciliation. So that is what makes me skeptical, whether we are moving forward or not."

Those sentenced to life in prison were convicted of trying to overthrow the government when they took part in post-election demonstrations in 2005. An independent investigation later concluded that the government responded too harshly in crushing the demonstrations.

VOA News

Deadly Mogadishu blasts overshadow peace talks

Wed 18 Jul 2007

By Guled Mohamed

MOGADISHU (Reuters) - Peace talks due to start in earnest in Somalia this week were overshadowed by a grenade attack in a Mogadishu market that killed at least three people on Wednesday.

The attack caused chaos at the Bakara Market, one of Africa's biggest arms markets, a day before the opening of the peace meeting, already adjourned from the weekend in a climate of violence.

At least three people including a Somali soldier died after grenades were thrown at a patrol, witnesses said.

"It's total chaos here. Troops are shooting at anyone on sight," taxi driver Ali Adan told Reuters by telephone.

Four civilians were killed in a blast at the same market late on Tuesday.

The latest violence came a day before a much-anticipated peace meeting was due to resume in the volatile capital, where attacks by insurgents targeting government troops, their Ethiopian allies and Ugandan peacekeepers have become a daily feature of life.

Mortar blasts marred the opening of the meeting on Sunday, which organisers adjourned until Thursday, saying they were waiting for more delegates to arrive.

Mohamed Ali Nur, Somalia's envoy to Kenya, denied reports the violence caused the postponement of talks seen as the interim government's best hope to end 16 years of chaos, triggered when warlords ousted the last national president in 1991.

"Some spoilers who don't want peace and good governance in Somalia are trying to spoil the conference ... we will continue," he told a news conference in Nairobi.

"We expect a good outcome."

PEACEKEEPING REVIEW

Since seizing Mogadishu from an Islamist movement in December with Ethiopian military help, the government has faced roadside bombings, Iraqi-style assassination attempts on senior officials and suicide attacks by Islamist remnants.

About 1,600 Ugandan peacekeepers serving with an African Union (AU) force have failed to quell the bloodshed. The interim government wants a fully fledged U.N. force.

On Wednesday, AU spokesman Assane Ba told Reuters the AU was reviewing their performance and was likely to ask for a six-month extension of the mission.

"We cannot leave a vacuum in Somalia," Ba said. "We know the United Nations is preparing, but at the time the mission expires they may not be able to deploy and we can't just leave Somalia like that."

As violence escalates around the sprawling Bakara traders are thinking of moving their wares to other markets in the bullet-riddled city of one million people.

"I have not sold anything this month," said shopkeeper Muse Abdi, a father of nine. "I have no option but to move my shop otherwise my kids will go hungry. I was optimistic when the government took over the city. It's so sad."

Reuters

Human Rights in Ethiopia: Another Casualty of the "War on Terror"?

Robert Naiman

An Ethiopian court sentenced 35 opposition politicians and activists to life in prison on Monday, AP reports. The prosecution had asked for the death penalty against the defendants, who included Ethiopia's top opposition leaders.

Those sentenced to life imprisonment include the leader of the Coalition for Unity and Democracy, Hailu Shawel; Berhanu Nega, who was elected mayor of Addis Ababa; former Harvard scholar Mesfin Woldemariam; and former U.N. special envoy and former Norfolk State University professor, Yacob Hailemariam.

Human rights groups condemned the trial as an attempt to silence government critics, and opposition leaders have claimed it was politically motivated.

Where is the U.S. State Department in all of this? Absent without leave. It seems that since Ethiopia is doing the State Department's bidding in Somalia, the U.S. is turning a blind eye to the Ethiopian government's crackdown on dissent. That's what some of the relatives of the prisoners believe. The Washington Post reported on June 12:

The prisoners' families and others have accused the U.S. government of softening criticism of Ethiopia's human rights record in light of the country's recent military intervention to oust a radical Islamic movement in Somalia. The U.S. government supported that intervention.

"The U.S. government will not pressure the government here because they have an interest in Somalia," said a relative of one of the prisoners, who wished to remain anonymous for fear of being harassed by Ethiopian security forces. "It really is a big disappointment."

There is an effort underway in Congress to reform U.S. policy towards Ethiopia to put concern for human rights back on the table. H.R.2003, introduced by Representative Donald Payne, now has 77 sponsors. It would encourage democratic reforms in Ethiopia, beginning with the release of political prisoners. Human rights groups are pressing Congress to take action on the bill before the summer recess.

Unfortunately, the crackdown in Ethiopia hasn't received a lot of attention in the U.S. press. Your Representative needs to hear from you.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com

Ethiopia Pardon Board to Decide Fate of Convicted Opposition Leaders

Butty interview with Simon
Listen to Butty interview with Simon
By James Butty

Washington, D.C.
17 July 2007

The Ethiopian government said 35 opposition politicians and activists who were sentenced to life imprisonment Monday by the country's Federal High Court are free to seek an appeal. Bereket Simon, advisor to Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi told VOA the opposition leaders and activists have signed a request asking the government to pardon them for committing what he called crimes against the constitution.

“It has been verified that the opposition who are in prison have signed a request for the government to pardon them based on the fact that they have made mistakes. So it has become a new development now,” he said.

In its decision Monday, the Federal High Court also denied the opposition leaders the right to vote or run for public office for inciting violence in an attempt to overthrow the government. Simon said the court’s decision is in line with Ethiopian law.

“That is a judicial decision. You know if they have been found criminal, and incarcerated, they have no right to vote or to run for public office,” he said.

Simon dismissed claims by international human rights groups that the trial was an attempt to silence the critics of Prime Minister Meles Zenawi.

“This is a process that was conducted in a fair manner in the presence of international observers. It was not politically motivated. This is a law enforcement issue; it is a legal issue. They have got the chance to defend themselves, but they were not able to defend the overwhelming facts that the government has presented. In any case, they have submitted an admission of guilt paper for the government. They have admitted clearly that they have committed mistakes that they have been trying to overthrow the government in an unconstitutional way,” Simon said.

Simon again rejected claims that the life sentence was an attempt by Prime Minister Zenawi to get rid of his political opposition. He said the Zenawi government is not afraid of the opposition.

“The same political opposition is in parliament. We are working with them; we are debating, arguing every day. We are not afraid of any of their ideas. Secondly, we will see how the Pardon Board will react to their request for pardon. If the Pardon Board accepts their request, these people might be out of prison. So in that case, it clearly tells you that this government is not afraid of the opposition as such,” he said.

Simon said the Ethiopian government initiated a legal process against the opposition leaders, which he said consummated Monday with the announcement of their life sentence. At the same time, Simon said elders in Ethiopia have been in contacted with the jailed opposition leaders.

“Both the elders and the prisoners reached an agreement; the prisoners admitted guilt. But the initiative of the elders had nothing to do with the government. The process of the government is a legal process, which has run its own course. No pressure from any outside force, no blackmail or whatsoever has stopped that from taking place, and that has been consummated now,” Simon said.

VOA News

Chronicle of an African Renaissance Foretold

Dr. Muhammad Shamsaddin Megalommatis

July 15, 2007

As the massacres perpetrated by Meles Zenwai’s tribal soldiers plunge Ogaden in its millennia long History’s worst crisis, Ogadenis allover the world coordinate their reactions and intensify their activities in view of a Free Ogaden, devoid of Amhara and Tigray Abyssinian soldiers.

Back in Ogaden, the ONLF has taken control of a sizeable part of Ogaden’s undemocratically annexed territory; the fake ‘Ethiopian’ tyrant lost momentum, as recent events demonstrated clearly that ONLF has the possibility to efficiently defend the tyrannized Ogadenis against the governmental oppression, and at the same time to drastically damage any foreign intruder who, disregarding Human Rights’ violations and inhumanly imposed terror, closes lucrative deals with the unrepresentative and murderous tyrant Zenawi.

It is crystal clear that when the Ogadenis face extrajudicial killings, arrests and peremptory imprisonment, looting of personal belongings, and all sorts of humiliating treatment that cannot be tolerated even if applied to animals, no one can calmly exploit Ogaden’s natural resources, even if Zenawi’s greedy partner and myopic ally happens to be a significant power, China or the US.

On the other hand, the galaxies of the Ogadeni Communities abroad, either in Europe, in America or Africa, intensify their demonstrations, taking their Just and Noble Cause to the streets of Washington DC, European capitals, and other cities. Last week, a handful of manifestations took place, and Ogaden was more widely known to average Westerners who have not thus far had the chance to travel to that magnificent and marveling country, which was never a concern for package deals.

The urgency in the case of Ogaden, which can be called Africa’s first Darfur, hinges on the propinquity of Somalia, and the well documented need of the Somali Islamists to find possible allies among the oppressed and tyrannized African peoples.

The alliance of Liberation movements with the Somali extremists, and through them with al Qaeda, may be just a matter of time, very little time. It would offer Osama Bin Laden a multi-dimensional and exponential expansion; by selling arms to oppressed populations’ liberation fronts, the master of the Islamic Terror will attempt to viciously alter and definitely eradicate the traditionalist, tolerant and multi-faceted African Islam that is absolutely incompatible with the Saudi, Pakistani and Iraqi medressas of Terror.

This is what simple people allover the globe should realize; the best way to avert an Islamist explosion in Africa that would bring numerous regimes to knees, is to pressurize governments and administrations, politicians and statesmen, diplomats and military to take action now. Only free, independent, and democratically ruled peoples have no need of Islamic Terrorists, as they engage themselves in the path of progress and development.

An Independent Ogaden would be twice the size of Portugal, and more populated than Norway; it could be the focal point of Eastern African development, due to its rich soil.

It is within reach; AU and UN could expand their Somalia mission throughout Ogaden, which was illegally annexed by fake ‘Ethiopia’, by effectively replacing Amhara and Tigray soldiers and gendarmeries that are the means of Abyssinian oppression in Ogaden.

Then, following a UN monitored referendum, the Ogadenis could peacefully vote for their Independence, and like this the Western World could effectively promote the Cause of Human Rights and Democracy in Africa, isolating and virtually canceling Al Qaeda’s chances in the Horn of Africa region.

I find it very important to add here a pertinent text that bears witness to Ogadenis’ political maturity and tolerance, realism and vision, as well as commitment to the liberation of their long tyrannize country.

It is a text issued during last week’s Ogadenis’ manifestations in Washington DC; the Declaration of the Ogaden American Community.

It heralds the long awaited Renaissance of Ogaden.

Declaration of the Ogaden American Community

We the Ogaden American Community,

Having witnessed what can only be described as war crimes currently being committed against innocent civilians in Ogaden by the Ethiopian Government,

Aware of the widespread detention of teachers, students, merchants, traditional elders and community activists in Ogaden by the Ethiopian regime without trial or just cause,

Concerned by the numerous cases of rape, torture, looting and public beatings the civilian population of Ogaden has had to endure at the hands of the Ethiopian regime,

Outraged by the economic blockade affecting the lives of countless citizens of Ogaden resulting in the skyrocketing of food prices and other consumer goods

Clear on the fact that this is a systematic campaign targeting the people of Ogaden because of their ethnicity and thus constituting war crimes and genocide by any definition,

Call on our government, the government of the United States of America and in particular the Secretary of State Ms. Condoleezza Rice to

1. End all non humanitarian assistance and in particular, military assistance to the Ethiopian regime.

2. Apply targeted sanctions against the leaders and army officers of the Ethiopian regime directly involved in the planning and execution of the campaign of genocide against the people of Ogaden.

3.Draft and Support a resolution in the United Nations Security Council calling for an immediate end to the genocide in Ogaden and instructing the dispatch of a

Security Council fact finding mission to Ogaden.

4. Facilitate a dialogue between the Ethiopian regime and the legitimate representatives of the people of Ogaden, the Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF).