Ethiopian Jews face more conflict in Israel

CBC News
Ethiopian Jews who fled their country recently seeking refuge in Israel are being forced to spend their first weeks living underground as rockets land in northern Israel.

Some of the recent arrivals are no strangers to conflict and violence as border wars and civil strife have gripped their native Ethiopia for much of the last half century.
Now, some of the new immigrants, who have come to Israel under a family reunion scheme, are coming face to face with more conflict.
A few hundred are being housed in a hostel in Tiberias, a town about 35 kilometres south of the Lebanese border.
The hostel houses about 250 immigrants and 100 of their children. They have been spending hours in the stifling hot underground concrete caverns.
They can't go very far — only to special indoor areas with no windows. No one goes outside.
Mothers carry their babies tied to their backs with blankets. To pass the time, staff teach some children Hebrew. On Fridays, the hostel holds a service to mark the Jewish Sabbath. Children sing Hebrew songs.
Yayesh Aitagl, who arrived with her husband and daughter 15 months ago, said she is scared, even though the staff at the hostel help by showing them what to do.
Her husband, Truye, worked as a driver in Ethiopia and confesses that he didn't expect this when he came to Israel.
"No, I didn't think it would like this," he said. "I am surprised, but I think it will all work out all right in the end. After all, it isn't targeted at us, we are only going through what all the Jewish people are going through."
Fanta Desaley, a mother of five, waited eight years in a camp in Ethiopia for the opportunity to emigrate. She arrived in Israel with her two youngest daughters at the end of June, two weeks before the conflict in south Lebanon erupted and rockets began to land.
"No, I am not frightened," she said. "Everyone is enduring the same thing. There was also fighting in Ethiopia and so I became used to it. I am strong and I am not afraid."
She has been given two rooms for herself and her daughters. Although it's simple accommodation, it has electricity and running water, which is more than she had in Ethiopia.

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The politics of aid in Ethiopia

By David Loyn
BBC Developing World correspondent
Aid thinking moves in policy cycles, and the dogma for now, at least for the big European donors, is to give aid directly to governments.
It is not given completely blindly, of course, and developing countries have to put in place poverty reduction strategies that add up.
But once they do, they are likely to get direct budget support to allocate funds as they see fit.
The idea has many advantages - ticking a lot of the necessary policy boxes.
It is predictable, harmonised, unconditional and more effective - helping weak economies to plan from a known cash flow, rather than trying to fit in with the plans of dozens of different donors.
And this principle of direct budget support won international backing with the Paris Declaration last year, which the big donor governments signed up to.
So far so good. But what happens when things go wrong?
If aid is really to be unconditional, then what levers do donor governments have left to play with?
Testing times
The biggest test so far came with the elections in Ethiopia last year.
Relations between the government and representatives of the international community had deteriorated even before the votes were all counted, with the government believing that foreign election observers favoured the opposition's account of what went wrong.
Since then, things have gone from bad to worse, with many of the opposition politicians who did win refusing to take their seats because they claim the election was stolen from them.
After demonstrations in November turned bloody, leading to deaths of protestors and policemen, thousands were rounded up and tight conditions imposed on the press.
Prime Minister Meles Zenawi claimed that he was facing a violent version of Ukraine's Orange Revolution, backed by expatriates who wanted to return to the dictatorship which he ousted in 1991.
But the opposition denies this, saying instead that they only want a fair election and freedom for those still being held in jail, many of whom are facing charges as serious as treason.
Closed doors
It was all a long way from the anointing of Mr Meles when Tony Blair launched his Commission for Africa side by side with him in Addis Ababa last October.
And now, remarkably for a country where one in six people depend on food aid, the big donors have not even spoken to the government for six months.
The straight-speaking EU representative Tim Clarke wants to talk, but says the door is closed.
'It takes two to tango. A dialogue requires trust and I can understand that on their side they were wounded. Suddenly the doors were closed, or at least half closed, and although we have been pushing for an openness and a dialogue, we haven't seen that happening as fast as we want."
Mr Meles agrees with the dancing metaphor, but will only take the floor again under certain principles.
"We are eager to engage the donor community in dialogue, but we would want to establish that dialogue on the basis of a number of principles...the first is predictability. Development assistance should not be turned on and off."
In public, the government make light of the loss. But at around $500m as donors cut funding, it must have hurt, and now the big spenders are by-passing the central government as much as possible, so they can make their point without causing pain to the poor.
Self-dependency
Instead of direct budget support to the centre, it is going to regional government instead, and Britain in particular is putting more emphasis on a "safety net", giving cash rather than food aid to those who work, to try to cut dependency.
It is a popular scheme. Dancitu Demisie, a widow and mother of five I met digging a drainage channel, showed me the goats she had been able to buy which she would not have if she just had food aid.
"I love to work, to work because I can manage to feed my family, to buy cattle, and to buy clothes for myself and my kids."
Ethiopia was to be a test case for democracy, but instead has turned into a test of how to manage the relationship when things go wrong.
And with "good governance" now the mantra of the moment, there could be more countries going this way in the future.

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Artist Solomon Tekaligne is on his way to EPPF Military Front to perform live for EPPF Arbegnoch.

The prospect of a famous Ethiopian Artist such as Solomon Tekaligne visiting and performing at EPPF Military Front has become a major moral boost for EPPF Arbegnoch at the Front. EPPF Arbegnoch are over ecstatic and really appreciative of this very humble, brotherly and patriotic gesture.
The news of Solomon’s arrival schedule has made moral within the entire organization extremely high. The EPPF Arbegnoch, whom put their lives on the line for their country on a daily basis are eagerly waiting for Solomon Tekaligne’s arrival. The EPPF Military Band has also prepared a special performance to welcome the brave son of Ethiopia.
EPPF Army is still engaging the Weyane soldiers in different parts of the country. Many Ethiopian are still joining EPPF to take part in the fight against dictatorship in Ethiopia.
EPPF Information Center.

Click Here: Negat Radio's first interview with Artist Solomon Tekaligne & Journalist Demis Belete from Asmara

Negat Radio,DC, USA
28th July 2006

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Ethiopian prisoners of conscious fear the worst

TPLF is increasing its maltreatment of the jailed CUDP leaders, journalists and social justice advocates. With the court hearing their case to have a summer recess soon and with the outside world giving less and less attention, the prisoners fear the worst. The signs indicate that their fear is not out of reality. Recently when a usual conflict occurred between other prisoners, the prison security officers gathered all the prisoners and told them that the persistent prison conflicts were occurring because of the CUDP leaders. In a clear attempt to instigate violence on the CUDP prisoners, one officer in particular said that other prisoners should watch out the CUDP leaders who caused the death of hundreds. Pro-TPLF police officers have also upped their verbal harassment. They were sometimes heard calling the prisoners "Traitors who sold Ethiopia to Somalia."
Those who had come from the countryside to visit the prisoners used to have a right of visitation on weekdays. Since last week, this right had been cancelled. Journalist Eskinder Nega was also transferred to Kerchelle last Thursday. His wife, Serkalem Fasil, remained in Kaliti. The couples used to see each other(without touching each other) on Weekends. The transfer of Eskinder has made that impossible. Serkalem is now suffering from sever depression as she left her unhealthy new baby to her mother and the prison authorities denied her of an opportunity to see her husband.
Prison sources said that all these are part of a systematic attempt to hurt the prisoners who are still showing incredible defiance and unbendable spirit.

Source: Ethio-Zagol

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Three blasts hit Ethiopian town

Three explosions in Dire Dawa, a railway town in eastern Ethiopia, on Monday caused minor damage but no injuries, a police official said.
Police had arrested one person suspected of involvement and an investigation was continuing.
"The explosions at the outer fence of a ticket office, a post office and underneath a bridge spanning the town caused minor damage to property and there were no casualties," police inspector Benyam Fikru told Reuters by telephone.
"Police suspect that these explosions were the work of terrorists aimed at destroying public utilities and attempting to disrupt the peace of the country," he added.
Dire Dawa lies 525km east of Addis Ababa on the main railroad connecting the capital with the port of Djibouti.
While such explosions are relatively rare in Ethiopia, Addis Ababa this year has been hit by several mysterious blasts.
Ethiopia has blamed neighbouring Eritrea and various rebel groups for attacks in the past.

-- Reuters

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Lidetu and Temesgen to kill HR 5680

They travel to US
Lidetu Ayalew and Temsgen Zewde will travel to the United States next month. Parliamentary sources informed this blogger that the two will meet US lawmakers and tell them there is a democratic process in Ethiopia which should be supported by US. They will be tavelling as opposition politicians.
The trip is organized by the US embassy in Addis and its aim is to kill the Human Rights Bill, HR 5680. This blogger will post the exact date of the two will travel to the US. The HR 5680 task force and other freedom loving Ethiopians should be alert about the situation.

Source: Ethio-Zagol

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Defending their lives: On Trial in Ethiopia (Amnesty International)

Amnesty International
In June and November 2005, demonstrations that left over 80 people dead and hundreds wounded took place in Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian capital, and other towns across Ethiopia in response to alleged election fraud in the May 2005 elections.
Thousands of opposition party members, human rights defenders, journalists and others were arrested during and after the demonstrations. Many have been released, but now 111 people are on trial before the Federal High Court in Addis Ababa. Charges filed against them include "high treason", "outrages against the Constitution", and "genocide". If convicted, they could receive death sentences. This trial has major implications for human rights, media freedom, democratization and the development of an effective and independent justice system in Ethiopia. The accused include elected opposition members of parliament, journalists and human rights defenders, considered Prisoners of Conscience (POCs) by Amnesty International (AI). AI is urging the international community to increase their efforts to work for the release of these defendants.
Elections and demonstrations
The general elections on 15 May 2005 were the third that took place under the 1995 Constitution and the ruling Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) coalition, headed by Prime Minister Meles Zenwai, which has been in power since 1991. The coalition is headed by the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF). The EPRDF overthrew the Marxist-Leninist government of President Mengistu Hailemariam (known first as the Dergue, or "committee", and which later formed the ruling Workers Party of Ethiopia (WPE)) after a long armed conflict. Many are still being tried on capital charges of genocide for massive human rights abuses committed over a 17-year period by the Dergue and WPE governments after the revolution of 1974, which overthrew Emperor Haileselassie’s government.
In the run up to the 2005 elections, AI had expressed concern at reports of human rights violations against opposition members, particularly the Coaliation for Unity and Democracy (CUD), including several killings, arbitrary detentions, harassment and intimidation by local police and militias. The EPRDF and its affiliated parties faced stronger opposition in 2005 than in previous elections by national and regional opposition parties, mainly from two coalitions, the CUD and the United Ethiopian Front (UEDF). Several opposition parties claimed that their members faced considerable restrictions and human rights abuses, particularly in remote rural areas outside the gaze of the international community and the media, centred in Addis Ababa.
Immediately after the 15 May poll, the opposition alleged election fraud by the government and EPRDF. In response, Prime Minister Zenwai banned demonstrations and took control of the security forces in Addis Ababa. On 8 June, soldiers in Addis Ababa shot dead 42 people who were protesting at the alleged fraud. Thousands of suspected opposition party supporters were also detained in harsh conditions and some were badly beaten. After a few weeks, all had been released on bail after short court appearances (see UA 261/05, AFR 25/013/2005, 30 September 2005 and follow ups).
In early November, the main opposition CUD, whose 109 MPs were boycotting the new parliament after the removal of their parliamentary immunity, called for a series of non-violent protest actions and boycotts of ruling party businesses. On 1 November, 30 taxi drivers were arrested for honking their car horns during the protest action. The demonstrations reportedly started peacefully, but after riot police started using live ammunition to target protestors in the central Mercato and other districts, the protests deteriorated over the next two days into stone-throwing, building barricades and burning vehicles. Many people were reportedly beaten severely by soldiers and police with some 30 people reportedly shot dead, 150 people wounded and thousands of people arrested. Two police officers were also reportedly killed by the protestors (see UA 284/05, AFR 25/017/2005, 2 November 2005).
Many thousands of people are still believed to be detained incommunicado in camps, despite the release of 8,000 people without charge in November 2005. Arrests have continued into 2006. Schoolchildren, college students and teachers were among thousands of demonstrators detained, particularly in Addis Ababa and the Amhara and Oromia regions after demonstrations at the end of December (see UA 26/06, AFR 25/003/2006, 3 Feb 2006). The government-controlled parliament established an inquiry on 26 April 2006 to report within three months on the violence which surrounded June and November demonstrations, but the report has not yet been published.
The European Union Election Observation Mission expressed serious concerns about the fairness of the elections in both an interim report published in August 2005 and a final report published in March 2006. The final report concluded that "overall … the elections fell short of international principles for genuine democratic elections." Prime Minister Zenawi called the interim report "garbage" and has not so far responded to the final report. In January 2006, the British government cut off US$88 million equivalent budget support to Ethiopia due to concerns about governance and human rights issues arising from the elections.
Arrested and charged
After the demonstrations on 1 November 2005 , following the street protests and police shootings, with a stay-home strike in process and many businesses closed, suspected opposition supporters, human rights defenders and journalists of the private press began being systematically arrested by police and taken away to unknown destinations. A woman was reportedly shot dead at home when she complained about the police arresting her husband, a CUD activist (see AI press statement: AFR 25/019/2005). Several thousand suspected government opponents from CUD and other opposition parties were detained over the coming days. There were reports of ill-treatment and intimidation of defendents after arrest, and after several weeks in custody, most of the CUD leaders and journalists went on hunger strike until they felt that the international community had taken notice.
Over 80 defendants, which included ten newly-elected members of parliament and other officials of the opposition CUD party, appeared before the Federal High Court in Addis Ababa on 23 February when the trial formally opened. Charges filed against them included treason, "outrages against the Constitution", armed conspiracy, and attempted "genocide". The grounds advanced by the prosecution for the charge of '"genocide"' do not meet internationally-recognized definitions of genocide and AI has called this charge "absurd". A total of 111 people have now been charged and are facing trial.
Almost the entire leadership of the CUD party are on trial, including major elected officials of the capital Addis Ababa: Dr Berhanu Negga, Hailu Shawel (CUD President and All Ethiopia Unity Party leader and civil engineer) and Birtukan Mideska (f) (CUD vice-president, Rainbow leader and lawyer). The defendants also include human rights defenders, journalists, lawyers (including Yakob Hailemariam, former UN genocide prosecutor at the Rwanda tribunal and former UN Special Envoy in the Cameroon/Nigeria border dispute), academics, members-elect of the national parliament, and members-elect of the Addis Ababa city council.
In addition, six newspaper publishing companies are charged. Twenty-five defendants are being tried in absentia for "outrage against the constitution", including five journalists of original Ethiopian nationality who live in the United States and work for the Voice of America (VOA) radio station.
"These people are prisoners of conscience, imprisoned solely on account of their non-violent opinions and activities," said Kolawole Olaniyan, Director of Amnesty International's Africa Programme. "It is unacceptable that they are now facing serious criminal charges that could lead to death sentences and possible execution. We demand their immediate and unconditional release and a halt to this attempt by the Ethiopian government to criminalize freedom of expression and prevent legitimate political and human rights activity."
The CUD leaders and journalists decided in advance of the opening of the trial on 2 May, to boycott the trial on the grounds that they believed that it would be fundamentally unfair and that the court was not independent. They claimed that they had been convicted in advance. The court entered "not guilty" pleas on their behalf.
The trial is being held in open court before a panel of three judges headed by a presiding judge. An EU trial observer, foreign diplomats and some local and foreign journalists have been attending the proceedings, and Amharic-English interpretation is being provided by the court.
If they are convicted, the defendants will have the right of appeal to the Supreme Court. If they are condemned to death, they will have the right to petition the the President, Girma Woldegiorgis, for clemency. According to the Constitution, the President may commute a death sentence, except if the accused has been sentenced for crimes against humanity.
Human rights defenders and journalists at risk
Professor Mesfin Woldemariam, aged 76, a retired geography professor at Addis Ababa University, founded the Ethiopian Human Rights Council (EHRCO), a non-governmental organization and the only human rights group officially registered in Ethiopia, in 1991. Prior to his arrest, he was in bed for three months suffering from severe leg and back pain requiring regular medical attention. He was allowed to have his own mattress in prison but his physiotherapist was not allowed to treat him. In detention, he manages to walk with a stick. In December 2005, Professor Mesfin was among several CUD members who went on a hunger strike for several weeks. He resumed his hunger strike on 8 February 2006 and is reported to be very weak.
Daniel Bekele, a human rights lawyer, is the policy and advocacy manager of the Ethiopian office of ActionAid, the international development agency. Netsanet Demissie, a human rights and environmental rights lawyer, is the founder and director of the Organization for Social Justice in Ethiopia (OSJE) a local human rights NGO. Both men, as anti-poverty activists, had been closely involved in activities in Ethiopia in support of the Global Call for Action against Poverty (GCAP). They were not members of any political party, and it appears that they may have been arrested solely on account of their criticisms of the government in the course of their legitimate civil society activities. Kassahun Kebede is a chair of the Addis Ababa branch of the Ethiopia Teachers association (ETA), the oldest trade union in Ethiopia.
The charges against the journalists of independent and privately-owned newspapers are apparently based on published interviews with opposition leaders that criticized the government and ERPDF during the election process. The charges against them contradict both guarantees of media freedom contained in the Ethiopian Constitution and international standards. Journalist Serkalem Fasil, has reportedly just given birth whilst in detention and has complained of a lack of medical and pre-natal care during her detention. Since 1992, at least 300 journalists have been arrested and imprisoned in Ethiopia, although since 2003, international pressure has resulted in fewer arrests and trials of journalists.
All of the defendants, except those tried in abstenia, are held in Kaliti prison on the outskirts of Addis Ababa. Cells are reportedly overcrowded, with some cells holding 30 prisoners and others holding up to 300. Sanitary and toilet facilities are inadequate, and during the night prisoners are locked into cold zinc-walled cells. Medical treatment is available when prisoners need to go to hospital, although treatment is often delayed. Written communications are not allowed, even to legal counsel, and reading materials are restricted. Consultations with legal representatives must usually be conducted in the presence of a police or security officer and must be carried out in Amharic, even if this is not the prisoner’s mother-tongue. There have also been some reports of beatings of prisoners.
Will the trial be fair?
AI has received reports that many judges have been dismissed in recent years, some allegedly on account of delivering judgments against the government. Defendant Birtukan Mideska, alleges that her own dismissal as a judge was a result of her delivering a judgement that was unfavourable to the government. Other judges have allegedly been promoted on delivering favourable judgements.
On 5 December 2005, the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights adopted a resolution on the human rights situation in Ethiopia which included requests to release all those arbitrarily detained and to guarantee rights including fair trial, freedom of expression and political assembly. AI attended the 39th session of the Africa Commission in May 2006 and highlighted AI’s concerns and pressed for the implementation of this resolution. The European Union, concerned about the fairness of trial, has appointed an international trial observer, and AI delivered a statement outlining concerns to the European Parliament on 15 May 2006.
On 24 April 2006 Ethiopia’s main donor group, the Ambassadors’ Donors Group, which includes bilateral donors, the African Development Bank, the European Commission, the UN Development Programme and the World Bank, called for the release of the imprisoned CUD leaders and representatives of the media and civil society, saying that "All elected leaders should be given a chance to take part in the political reconciliation process".
Louise Arbour, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, visited Ethiopia in late April 2006. She is reported to have met with Ethiopian Government officials, including Prime Minister Zenawi, and visited local prisons. She reportedly expressed concern about the charges against the defendants, and she reportedly described the human rights situation in Ethiopia as "worrying".
The Government of Ethiopia sent a response to AI via the embassy in London condemning AI's report and campaign: "Amnesty has no grounds whatever(sic) for the position it took with regard to these individuals who are accused of very serious crimes, nor does it have any grounds to question the independence and integrity of the Ethiopian institutions."
Even so, AI will continue to urge the international community to increase their efforts to work for the release of these defendants and to mobilize AI's membership to campaign on behalf of them. AI has received messages of thanks from associates of the defendants for the report and Urgent Actions, which may continue throughout the trial.
For complete information about the defendants and the proceedings, please see AI's report, Ethiopia: Prisoners of Conscience on trial for treason: opposition party leaders, human rights defenders and journalists, AI Index: AFR 25/013/2005

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Long wait for thousands still stranded in Lebanon, Including Ethiopians

By David Clarke
BEIRUT (Reuters) - "One at a time, one at a time," screamed the guards at Sri Lanka's embassy in Beirut, shoving back crowds of people waving passports, desperate to get inside.
There are some 80,000 Sri Lankans working in Lebanon and thousands have descended on the small embassy a 20 minute drive from downtown Beirut, seeking help to flee Israel's bombs.
The mass evacuation of Western nationals is drawing to a close but tens of thousands of poor migrant workers are trapped in Lebanon. Some are frightened, some are simply homeless, having been deserted by their fleeing bosses.
The Sri Lankan community is the biggest and 98 percent work as maids for about $100 a month. There are some 30,000-40,000 Filipinos, up to 20,000 Ethiopians and 10,000 Bangladeshis.
Their embassies have limited resources and are being helped by the International Organization of Migration (IOM) and aid group Karitas. They are aiming to put the evacuees on buses to Syria, and then onto planes home.
"I'm leaving because I'm too afraid and a I have a small, three-year-old son in Sri Lanka," said Ganegamage Malkanthi, 24, standing next to her Lebanese employer who was helping get her application to leave processed.
Inside the embassy the corridors are clogged and scores of Sri Lankans crowd the few rooms, hunkered down, leaning on suitcases, sleeping sprawled on the floor in the sticky heat.
Amanul Farouque, Sri Lanka's ambassador to Lebanon, Syria and Iraq, is coordinating the evacuation, working round the clock with his staff of eight, calmly fielding call after call on his mobile and pleading his case to those who can help.
STRANDED AND HOMELESS
He says 500 Sri Lankans slept at the embassy on Monday night and another 300 were housed in Karitas shelters in Beirut. Farouque is just about managing to keep them fed but says the embassy keeps running out of water.
"People are pouring into the embassy in their hundreds, their thousands ... and we have limited resources," he said. "We hope that in the next three, four, five days the situation will even itself out."
Vincent Houver, IOM's head of operations for Beirut emergency activities, said he hoped to move 900 Sri Lankans out through Syria by Saturday. About 2,000 are registered to leave and many more queued on Tuesday to add their names to the lists.
Houver said many of the 3,000 Filipinos waiting to go were simply left on the street when their employers packed up and fled, so getting them home was a priority.
"The Westerners left so people are asking why can't we leave? Then some in a community get out so others decide to go," he said. "It's a snowball effect, a self-fulfilling prophecy."
Many Lebanese families depend on their Sri Lankan and Filipino staff to run their homes and look after their children.
Farouque worries some Sri Lankans are being prevented from leaving by employers keeping their passports. But he said the authorities were understanding, and if people turned up without their documents there was still a chance they could leave.
Nassif Freen, 36, a computer engineer in Beirut, was one of many Lebanese doing their utmost to help scared staff get out.
But one man at the embassy clearly had a different motive.
"Our girl left the house. So I came to the embassy to find her. I saw her, 10 metres away, but she ran away," said a Lebanese businessman who just called himself Said.
"I have her passport and her papers so I've come to see if she wants to leave -- or not. Why does she want to leave? She's happy," he said, as he pestered embassy officials, calling them "servants" under his breath.
Finally, one official reassured Said his maid needed her passport to leave Lebanon. So he headed home -- relieved.

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Ethiopian woman killed in Lebanon by Israel Bombs

Suzanne Goldenberg in Tibnin, Lebanon
Wednesday July 26, 2006
The Guardian

But he too left people behind. In the ruins of his home, hit by the Israeli forces on Monday night, lay the bodies of his two maids: one Ethiopian, one Sri Lankan. The women were asleep when Mr Baydoun's home was attacked.

It is their feet that tell their story. They are bloody, swollen and bandaged after carrying them over mountains and under rocket barrages as Israel's war against Hizbullah erased the lives behind them.
In their villages lay ancestral houses crushed by bombs, family heirlooms abandoned mid-flight, the elderly and the frail, and of course the dead, their bodies trapped beneath the rubble. All that belonged to the past now.
The awful present was here in Tibnin General Hospital, a modest facility even in ordinary times, whose doors yesterday opened on a vision of hell: as many as 1,600 desperate and terrified refugees caught up in Lebanon's deepening humanitarian crisis.
They were men, women, children and newborn babies, forced to abandon their homes as the frontline drew nearer, and stranded in this hospital for days. There was no running water or electricity, no doctors or medicines, little food and even less hope.
They had walked here over hills shuddering beneath Israeli air strikes. Some were barefoot. Others were shellshocked. Some barely managed to enter this world; five babies have been born prematurely at the hospital since the beginning of the war, the Lebanese Red Cross said.

The hundreds here are the most wretched of this war: too poor or unwilling to flee when the first waves of refugees washed up from south Lebanon. The only destination open for them was the darkness of this hospital cellar, barely relieved by a few flickering candles.

And they still aren't safe. Tibnin lies 7km from the town of Bent Jbail, a Hizbullah redoubt a couple kilometres north of the border that is now encircled by Israeli troops. Minutes after our arrival, two artillery shells slammed into the hillside below the hospital. A woman screamed: "Save us". A man yelled at the crowd to calm down, and then a surge of human flesh carried both of them inside. Another shell landed, and then two more.
The roads leading to Tibnin are scored with craters from Israeli air strikes, and in several of the neighbouring villages at least one house has been flattened by an Israeli bomb, carrying a tonnage capable of blowing out the shutters of shops several hundred metres away.
But it was nothing compared to what Kamal Mansour left behind. A farmer from the eastern village of Aaitaroun, which lies barely 2km from the Israeli border, he had been determined to stay in his home despite the increasing intensity of the air war.
But by yesterday morning he could take no more. "They hit us very aggressively," he said. "They didn't leave a single house standing, and there are still people there, buried under the rubble."
He gathered his children - nine of them - and began the trek to safety, carrying the smallest ones on his shoulders. There was no other way out. In this time of war, transport is at a premium: the fare to Tyre has risen to $100 (£54) per person, or $250 for a car. That was inconceivable for Mr Mansour. "We had no gas and no car. Whoever had a car and could leave had already left."
Hala Abu Olaya, a dental secretary from Bent Jbail who lived with her mother and two sisters, also had no car. As the war wore on, the women were forced to flee to four different houses in succession in the besieged town. None offered any real safety. "First they destroyed our house. We left with only the clothes on our back," she said. "We ran to one house, and the bomb fell in front of the door, so we had to escape that house too. Then we ran away to another house. But then that house got bombed."
By the time she arrived in Tibnin, Ms Abu Olaya had been wearing the same clothes for 14 days. Her mother and sisters were no longer with her. "I have nothing now," she said.
For Ali Hourani, a stonemason, also from Bent Jbail, flight offered the cruellest of choices: his ageing parents or his five children. At 82, his father, who has diabetes, was in no condition to flee, nor was his mother, who is 75.
"We spent 10 days under bombs, and it was as if we had died 100 deaths," he said. "No one cared about us. No one asked about us."
As Israeli forces moved deeper into the town, seizing houses on its outskirts, Mr Hourani arrived at his decision. Leaving his parents behind in their home, he took his children out over the hills. He also carried the guilt with him. "There are still a lot of people in the village," he said. "Please help us to get them. We are desperate to get them out. They are injured and old."
In Tibnin hospital, the circumstances are no less desperate. The only supply route is from the coastal town of Tyre via ambulances belonging to the Lebanese Red Cross. The volunteer medics estimate that they can bring in 500 packets of Arabic bread, and 100 cans of tinned fish per trip. It's just about enough for one meal a day.
It can't come too soon for Yusuf Baydoun, 78, who spent 2½ hours walking here over the hills in socks and plastic bath sandals.
"They were bombing all the time," he said. "It was very bad. I thought my heart was going to stop."
Mr Baydoun managed to bring out his wife and two daughters. But he too left people behind. In the ruins of his home, hit by the Israeli forces on Monday night, lay the bodies of his two maids: one Ethiopian, one Sri Lankan. The women were asleep when Mr Baydoun's home was attacked. "It is very sad," he said. "It was not their war."

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Muslims protest at Arat kilo, Addis Ababa

The federal police storm a place where muslims pray at Arat Kilo to demolish the place at 9:30 this morning and met a strong resistance. Eye witnesses said that more than hundred young muslims threw rocks on the federal police which responded by sealing roads and driving them out of the place.
Some non-muslims also joined the protest. Although the place wasn't a proper mosque, it was frequented by young muslims who attend prayers. The provisional city government declared that the place belonged to another owner.

Source: Ethio-Zagol

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the International Development Economics Associates in support of Dr. Berhanu Nega

This letter is officially emailed to the Minister and it is also sent by fax and post.

25 July 2006

The Minister of Justice
Mr. Assefa Kesito,
Ministry of Justice,
PO Box 1370, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
Fax: + 251 11 552 0874
Email: ministry-justice@telecom.net.et

Dear Minister,

We, the International Development Economics Associates (IDEAs), a network of progressive economists across the world engaged in research, teaching, and dissemination of critical analyses of economic policy and development, appeal to you to urgently provide adequate medical treatment for Dr Berhanu Nega, Professor of Economics of the Addis Ababa University, who is currently a prisoner at the Kaliti prison near Addis Ababa.
IDEAs is a non-profit research organisation led by economists based in several developing countries as well as developed countries. We are headquartered at New Delhi, India, with financial support from the United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD), United Nations Development Fund (UNDP), the Ford Foundation and others. IDEAs has been formally associated with Dr. Berhanu Nega as a respected Ethiopian Economist and in his earlier capacity as the Director of the Ethiopian Economic Association (EEA), Addis Ababa.
We are all shocked and deeply concerned that Dr. Berhanu Nega’s health condition has deteriorated because he is reportedly not receiving adequate medical attention in the Kaliti prison, even when he is known to be suffering from the potentially life-threatening health conditions of high blood pressure and cardiomyopathy. As has been pointed out by Amnesty International, this is absolutely against regional and international standards for the treatment of prisoners, such as the UN Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners.
We therefore urge you and appeal to you to take immediate action to provide adequate medical treatment for him and all the other prisoners in this trial, in accordance with regional and international standards for the treatment of prisoners. We call upon you to use your high offices to ensure that he is given access to a trained cardiologist immediately for a full assessment of his heart condition and medical treatment as needed; and that he is transferred to better conditions in Kaliti prison in accordance with the medical recommendations.

Sincerely,

1. Professor Pasuk Phongpaichit, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand (Chairperson, IDEAs Executive Committee)
2. Dr. Thandika Mkandawire, UNRISD, Geneva (Chairperson, Advisory Board of IDEAs)
3. Professor C. P. Chandrasekhar, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India (Member, IDEAs Executive Committee)
4. Professor Erinc Yeldan, Bilkent University, Ankara, Turkey (Member, IDEAs Executive Committee)
5. Professor Jayati Ghosh, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India (Member, IDEAs Executive Committee)
6. Professor K. S. Jomo, Assistant Secretary General, United Nations, New York (Member, Advisory Board of IDEAs)
7. Professor Samir Amin, Dakar, Senegal and Forum du Tiers Monde (Member, Advisory Board of IDEAs)
8. Professor Maria da Conceicao Tavares, UFRJ, Brazil (Member, Advisory Board of IDEAs)
9. Professor Kari Polanyi Levitt, Canada (Member, Advisory Board of IDEAs)
10. Professor Diane Elson, University of Essex, United Kingdom (Member, Advisory Board of IDEAs)
11. Professor Korkut Boratav, Ankara University, Turkey (Member, Advisory Board of IDEAs)
12. Dr. Arturo O'Connell, Director of Central Bank of Argentina, Buenos Aires, Argentina (Member, Advisory Board of IDEAs)
13. Professor Prabhat Patnaik, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India (Member, Advisory Board of IDEAs)
14. Professor Dani Rodrik, Harvard University, USA (Member, Advisory Board of IDEAs)
15. Professor Amartya Sen, Harvard University, USA (Member, Advisory Board of IDEAs)
16. Professor Joseph Stiglitz, Columbia University, USA (Member, Advisory Board of IDEAs)
17. Mr. Anilkumar Mani, Administrative Manager, IDEAs Secretariat, C/O Economic Research Foundation, New Delhi.
18. Dr. Ranja Sengupta, Senior Economist, IDEAs Secretariat, New Delhi.
19. Dr. Smitha Francis, Senior Economist, IDEAs Secretariat, New Delhi.
20. Dr. Sukanya Bose, Senior Economist, IDEAs Secretariat, New Delhi.
21. Ms. Shipra Nigam, Economist, IDEAs Secretariat, New Delhi.
22. Mr. Anamitra Roychowdhury, Economist, IDEAs Secretariat, New Delhi.
23. Mr. Shouvik Chakraborty, Economist, IDEAs Secretariat, New Delhi.
24. Mr. Amitayu Sen Gupta, Economist, IDEAs Secretariat, New Delhi.
25. Dr. Murali Kallummal, Centre for WTO Studies, IIFT, New Delhi.
26. Prof. Madhura Swaminathan, Indian Institute of Statistics, Kolkatta.
27. Prof. V.K. Ramchandran, Indian Institute of Statistics, Kolkatta.

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Policemen fear being used for Meles Zenawi's misadventure

EPRDF is giving anti-terrorism training for more than a thousand federal policemen at Blate military training camp. Informants at the federal police confirmed to this blogger that 1400 members of the federal police are in the military camp for special training. The trainees were told about terrorism in East Africa and terrorism by anti-peace elements at home. According to other informants, there will be additional policemen, mostly from the Addis Ababa police force, who will be taken to Blate for same training. Some who fear a call up are already deserting the force.
The Ethiopian military is being stretched across the country's border as Meles Zenawi's illegitimate government it is in a problem with all its neighbors. Although the government is not reporting its misadventure to Somalia, People in Addis Ababa, who got news for VOA, have been seriously opposing the intervention of Ethiopian forces in Somalian domestic affairs. Members of the police force are anxious that they may be taken to warfront as a back up for the army.Thousands of members of the Addis Ababa police force are already undergoing through a very tough training regime at the Hurso military camp.

Source: Ethio-Zagol

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Al-Ahbash ("the Ethiopians")

The Association of Islamic Charitable Projects (Jami'at al-Mashari' al-Khayriya al-Islamiya), known as Al-Ahbash ("the Ethiopians"), almost 8,000 members: One of the most controversial and interesting of contemporary Islamic groups, due to its origins, its eclectic theological roots, and its teachings, which do not fit the conventional Islamist mold.21 The Ahbash is a Sufi (or spiritualist) movement that devoutly follows the teachings of Sheikh `Abdallah ibn Muhammad ibn Yusuf al-Hirari ash-Shi'bi al-Abdari, also known as al-Habashi, a religious thinker of Ethiopian origins. It is spiritually Islamist but not politically. By the late 1980s, the Ahbash had become one of Lebanon's largest Islamic movements, having grown during the civil war from a few hundred members to its present size. The Ahbash did not create a militia of its own, nor did it engage in sectarian violence or fight Israel. Proselytizing and recruitment are its main aims, along with a commitment to moderation and political passivity.
The Ahbash became a key player in Lebanese politics by offering a moderate alternative to Islamism, attracting a wide following among the Sunni urban middle class by advocating pluralism and tolerance. Its ideology makes the Ahbash politically significant, including sharp controversies with Islamist movements. While Habashi pays allegiance to the pious ancestors (salaf) and the Shari'a, his emphasis on "the science of hadith" makes him suspect as being a follower of the Kalamiya (literalist) tradition of the Mu'tazila who stressed the superiority of reason over revelation. He rejects such Islamist authorities as Ibn Taymiya, Ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab, and Sayyid Qutb. In contrast to Hizbullah and the Islamic Association, the Ahbash opposes the establishment of an Islamic state on the grounds that this divides Muslims. Instead, it accepts Lebanon's confessional system (which used to give Christians six slots for every five Muslim slots, and now gives them parity). Its foreign policy orientation is equally mild, making no reference to jihad and directing no anger toward the West. To achieve a civilized Islamic society, it recommends that members study Western learning. Also, the Ahbash has established branches in Australia, Canada, Denmark, France, Sweden, Switzerland, the Ukraine, and the United States (with headquarters in Philadelphia). It enjoys excellent relations with most Arab states, particularly Syria. In rivalry with the Islamic Association for dominance of the Sunni community, it entered the parliamentary elections of 1992 and won one seat in Beirut, though it lost it in 1996.

Source: http://www.biu.ac.il/SOC/besa/meria/journal/1997/issue3/jv1n3a2.html

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TPLF Runs Into Jihad

Ethiopians in Somalia may prove interesting. Recently, the UN undertook a program improve the quality of peacekeeping troops supplied by certain countries. Ethiopia was specifically cited as providing poorly trained and physically unfit personnel. Ethiopian peacekeepers often turned up for duty badly equipped and were rarely paid (with Ethiopian officials taking the UN payments). This led to poor morale and discipline, and resulted in some Ethiopian peacekeepers going into business for themselves. The troops going into Somalia may be of higher quality, but not a lot. That said, at least the Ethiopians are trained soldiers. The Somalis, even the best of them, are warriors. These lads are long on bravado and short on discipline. Back in 1994, when U.S. troops fought warlord forces in Mogadishu, over twenty Somali gunmen died for each U.S. soldier. In the past, Ethiopians have usually gotten the better of Somali troops, and did even better against Somali irregulars. That said, the Ethiopians are not invincible against Somalis, otherwise, Ethiopia would include the coastal areas that now comprise Somalia. But for centuries, the Arabs have actively assisted the Somalis in keeping the Ethiopians away. The coastal areas of East Africa have had an Arab flavor for thousands of years. That interference continues, with the Islamic Courts receiving weapons from Yemen, either directly, or via traders in Eritrea.

Source: http://www.strategypage.com

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There has been a black presence in Basra — present-day Southern Iraq

(AD 869–883), a black-slave revolt against the 'Abbasid caliphal empire. A number of Basran landowners had brought several thousand East African blacks (Zanj) into southern Iraq to drain the salt marshes east of Basra. The landowners subjected the Zanj, who generally spoke no Arabic, to heavy slave labour and provided them with only minimal subsistence.
Past Imperfect: Black Iraq
Basra's more than the center of Iraq's oil industry; it's the center of a centuries-old history of African influence.
By William Jelani Cobb

Enter the words "black," "city" and "fuel" into the search engine of the American psyche and you'll conjure up the image of a Chevron station in Detroit. But add a historical element into the equation and you come up with Basra, Iraq. In the three-card hustle of American foreign policy, the port-city of Basra is the elusive Queen. (The other two bluff cards say "Saddam Hussein" and "War on Terrorism.") This week, Iraq's delegation to OPEC gleefully reported that 2.1 million barrels of crude oil were flowing from the Basra wells daily. The city's contemporary significance centers around its oil production; historically, though, the city was a commercial and governmental center that rivaled Baghdad for wealth and influence. It is also home to the little-discussed populations of black Iraqis.
The Zanj, who were primarily persons of East African descent, were to have a significant impact upon Iraqi history. Thirty years of black and Diaspora studies have shed light on the scale, intensity and impact of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade — the 400-year traffic of Africans between the continent, Europe and the colonies of the alleged new world. Less attention has been paid, though, to the millennium-long slave trade that scattered African slaves throughout present-day Iraq, Turkey, Kuwait, Iran, Pakistan and India. Emerging European capitalism and the labor requirements of cash crops like sugar, cotton and tobacco drove the Trans-Atlantic trade; the Trans-Saharan trade, which flourished from the eighth century AD through the 1840s, brought African labor to the hazardous enterprises of pearl diving, date farming and the raw, brutal work of clearing Iraqi salt marshes. African boys were commonly castrated to serve as eunuch guards of royal harems. Unlike those who were enslaved in the west, however, blacks enslaved in the Arabic-speaking world also served as guards, sailors and high-ranking soldiers. In the 19th century, Basra was one of the most profitable slave ports in the region, commonly offering slave traders as much as 50% returns upon their "investments."
As early as the 7th century, when Abu Bakra, an Ethiopian soldier who had been manumitted by the prophet Muhammad himself, settled in the city. His descendants became prominent members of Basran society. A century later, the writer Jahiz of Basra wrote an impassioned defense of black Africans — referred to in Arabic as the Zanj — against accusations of inferiority which had begun to take root even then. The Zanj, who were primarily persons of East African descent, were to have a significant impact upon Iraqi history. They had been traded from ports along the African coast (Zanzibar, which is derived from the term "Zanj," was a major slave exporting center during the era) to clear salt marshes. Laboring in miserable, humid conditions, the Zanj workers dug up layers of topsoil and dragged away tons of earth to plant labor-intensive crops like sugarcane on the less saline soil below. Fed scant portions of flour, semolina and dates, they were constantly in conflict with the Iraqi slave system. Between the 7th and 9th centuries, the Zanj staged three rebellions, the largest of which occurred between 868 and 883 AD.
Led by an Iraqi poet named Ali Ibn Muhammad, the Zanj uprising of 868 galvanized thousands of black slaves who laid siege to and eventually overran the city of Basra. In short order, black soldiers in the army of the ruling Abbasid emperors based in Baghdad began to desert and swelled the ranks of the rebellion. Similar to later rebellions that created liberated "maroon" communities throughout the new world, the 15-year conflict, known as "The Revolt of the Zanj," led to the establishment of an independent Zanj capital city, minting of currency and the decade-long control of Basra — one of the most important trade ports in the Abbasid empire. At their zenith, the Zanj armies marched upon Baghdad and got within 70 miles of the city.
The Zanj uprising was crushed in 883 by the Abbasids, but doing so required vast amounts of the empire's extensive resources. African slavery in Iraq continued to exist throughout both the Ottoman and British empires which incorporated the region into their holdings. In the mid-19th century, decades after the Trans-Atlantic trade had been (technically) outlawed, the Arab trade persisted. As historian Joseph Harris writes in his African Presence in Asia:From Kuwait, slave parties were dispatched in small groups on land and sea to Zubair and Basra, where brokers sold slaves in their homes. The surplus was marched along the Tigris and Euphrates rivers to Baghdad.
British officials during the era noted how widespread slave ownership was among the Iraqi families.
The descendants of the Zanj exist in the region today in (often self-contained) communities with names like "Zanjiabad, Iran" that hint at the history of the peoples living there. The status of these black Iraqis is little discussed — though Iranians have written of persistent racism and stereotypes directed at the Zanj in their country. One can only wonder, though, what the addition of hundreds of oilmen will do for a black minority community living in Basra — because word-association for the terms "oil" "money" and "slavery" yields the following results: Texas; see also: Presidential Politics.

Source: http://www.assatashakur.org

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Ethiopian women: trafficked and trapped in Lebanon

You have to search hard and then read between the lines to find anything about the tens of thousands of African women - mostly Ethiopian - currently trapped in Lebanon in the midst of the humanitarian disaster caused by Israel's overwhelming and prolonged military assault. Just to interject a piece of traditional wisdom about this deadly turn in the "Mideast (read Palestinian) conflict": Two wrongs don't make a right. What I find just as sad as whole-scale cross-border fighting is that even before these missile and rocket attacks began these women already were trapped in a largely ignored humanitarian disaster - in Lebanon and elsewhere in the Middle East. What other African countries likely have citizens trapped in Lebanon's man-made tragedy? Somalia, Burundi, and probably even Nigeria. On Wed., 19 July from relative safety in a Beirut underground parking garage, BBC News showed the unidentified face of a lone displaced Ethiopian woman. She appeared to be 40ish and seemed to be wearing a blue maid's uniform. Obviously distressed, she stood against a cement pillar, covering her mouth with her hand. In that moment my impression was she seemed alone, even among the people - mostly Lebanese - also sheltering there and milling around her.
It was a few years ago while living in Nairobi, in east Africa, that I first learned that Ethiopian women were being trafficked to Lebanon, including for prostitution.
Blogher's own JaninSanFran's Happening Here blog has an entry on foreign workers trapped in Lebanon - "Foreign nationals under the Israeli gun". Jan's post includes the BBC's own chart showing numbers of other countries' nationals in Lebanon (attached below). Five of the six countries have populations traditionally, and not always accurately, identified as white or only slightly more vaguely "European". The same groups are euphemistically referred to as "westerners". The sole exception on the BBC list is the Philippines.
In spite of the obvious geography of the current crisis - i.e., the so-called Middle East adjoins Africa - for some reason there is far more awareness of the thousands of "guest workers" in Lebanon from Asia - Sri Lanka and Philippines in particular - yet next to nothing on persons from countries virtually next door to the west and south of Egypt. That would be Africa. In the midst of shelling and lack of electricity, food and water, and uneven evacuations by other countries of their nationals, virtually all these Africans and Asians remain stranded: unaided or somehow 'beyond the reach' of assistance by their own governments (or in Somalia's case transitional, interim government ).
Ethiopian writer Bathseba Belai corroborates the broader issues of trafficking as she writes about the "forgotten diaspora" of Ethiopian women labour migrants in the Middle East.
According to the U.S. State Department's 2005 Lebanon human rights report, from July 2004 the Lebanese government quit issuing visas to Ethiopian migrant workers. "... the SG [Lebanese police known as the "surete general"] stopped issuing visas to migrant workers from Ethiopia because Ethiopian authorities could not guarantee that adequate safeguards against fraud in the recruitment of these women for work in Lebanon were being taken."
State Department's Ethiopia human rights report for the same year goes into detail:

"... Young Ethiopian women were trafficked to Djibouti and the Middle East, particularly Lebanon, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, and Bahrain for
involuntary domestic labor. A small percentage were trafficked for sexual exploitation to Europe via Lebanon.

How many women equal "a small percentage"?

"... Private entities arranged for overseas work and, as a result, traffickers
sent women to Middle Eastern countries--particularly Lebanon, Saudi Arabia,
Bahrain, and the United Arab Emirates--as domestic or industrial workers. These
women typically were trafficked through Djibouti, Yemen, and Syria. The chief of
the investigation and detention center in Lebanon reported in October [2005]
that 30 thousand Ethiopian women worked in Beirut, the vast majority of whom
were trafficked. ... Approximately 50 percent of these women were not able to
return legally to their home country. ...

Source: http://blogher.org/blog/marian

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Ethiopians in Lebanon cry for help

Ethiomedia
July 23, 2006
In war-torn Lebanon, where there are an estimated 30,000 Ethiopians, many governments have taken nealy all of their respective citizens out of the country. But not Ethiopians. Chocking with tears of hopelessness, two Ethiopians called on their fellow compatriots around the world for help as they had neither the financial means nor a government like others to leave war-ravaged Lebanon behind for safety.
"We are in the most difficult situation ... we are abandoned as stateless vagrants...we don't know what has happened to the thousands of Ethiopian workers in southern Lebanon, the site of fierce fighting," a woman who gave her name as Martha told Addis Dimts Radio while chocking back sobs.
In Ethiopia, the story is, sadly, quite different.
"The Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the first batch of Ethiopians have arrived in Syria from Lebanon through an effort to rescue them from being victims of the ongoing crisis in the country [Lebanon]," the government reported in the July 20 edition of the state-owned Ethiopian Herald, adding, "Ethiopians who illegally stayed in Lebanon have also been evacuated to Syria after the government exempted punishment of 350 USD they should annually pay for illegally staying in the country."
Another woman told the online Debteraw that the story being told to the Ethiopian people was quite different. "Speaking on the phone from Addis, my mom asked me how come I was not coming home. She thought the government news was really true."
The Ethiopian woman said many of her compatriots were clustered in groups of 20 and 30 everywhere, not knowing how their fate would turn out. "Our problems - ranging from hunger with our children to the fear of being killed - are worsening by each passing hour. We call on all Ethiopians in North America and elseswhere around the world to do a life-saving campaign on behalf of us. "We are trapped in the death valley. Save us."
Commenting on the obscured life of Ethiopian women trapped in Lebanon's underworld, blogger Marian wrote: "On Wed., 19 July from relative safety in a Beirut underground parking garage, BBC News showed the unidentified face of a lone displaced Ethiopian woman. She appeared to be 40ish and seemed to be wearing a blue maid's uniform. Obviously distressed, she stood against a cement pillar, covering her mouth with her hand. In that moment my impression was she seemed alone, even among the people - mostly Lebanese - also sheltering there and milling around her."
Meanwhile, Israeli warplanes struck a minibus carrying people fleeing the fighting Sunday in southern Lebanon, killing three people, Lebanese security officials said, and Hezbollah rockets killed two civilians in northern Israel, AP reported July 23.
The stricken minibus was carrying 16 people fleeing the village of Tairi, heading through the mountains for the southern port city of Tyre. A missile hit the bus near the village of Yaatar, killing three and wounding the rest, security officials said.
On Saturday, the Israeli military told residents of Taire and 12 other nearby villages to evacuate by 4 p.m.

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Military intervention is dividing TPLF

Indian Ocean Newsletter N° 1190
22/07/2006
The possibility of a military intervention to support its allies in Somalia is dividing the EPRDF. The Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF, governing coalition) is split over the idea of a military intervention in Somalia to support its allies of the Transitional Federal Government (TFG). The militia of the Islamist Courts Union (ICU) are preparing for military actions in the direction of Baidoa, the stronghold of the Somalian TFG and warlords who oppose the Islamists. The question of Ethiopian aid for the TFG forces is on the cards, but is dividing the Ethiopian authorities. According to information obtained by The Indian Ocean Newletter, the Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, supported by Bereket Simeon, is considering a direct and decisive intervention against the Islamists. But the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Seyoum Mesfin, as well as Sebhat Nega and Abay Tsegaye advise him to take a more cautious approach.
There are similar divergences within the army, with the Army Chief of Staff Samora Yunis along with some Tigrayan generals in favour of a strong intervention in Somalia. On the other hand, other generals, whether Tigrayan, Oromo or Amhara, are opposed to such intervention. They are wary that it may be exploited by Eritrea as in this case the EPRDF forces would be divided on two fronts a long way from each other. According to sources in the Ethiopian opposition, several hundreds of combatants of the Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF, opposition), armed and supported by Eritrea, have already infiltrated these last few weeks via Djibouti into the Ethiopian region of Ogaden, in the hope that an Islamist victory in Mogadishu would favour the development of their own breakaway struggle in Ethiopia.
Another topic of discussion in the EPRDF leadership concerns the idea of changing the name and the manifesto of this coalition. Certain nostalgic people, such as Adissu Legesse, are strongly opposed to such a change. Meanwhile, the EPRDF is setting up a committee to celebrate the millennium (according to the Ethiopian calendar, the first day of the New Year 1999 will be on 11 September). Mulugeta Asrat Kassa, son of the late Asrat Kassa, was called to Addis Ababa from his home in London to be one of the executives of this committee. The EPRDF wants to still be in power when it celebrates the first day of the year 2000 (according to the Ethiopian calendar) and hopes that by that time the unrest in the opposition will have dissipated. Particularly as the big shots have not entirely cut off links with the radical opponents. Hence, the Norwegian authorities have passed a message to open negotiations on to the government in Addis Ababa, from the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF) and the Alliance for Freedom and Democracy (AFD).
Meanwhile, the Ethiopian President Girma Wolde-Girogis, currently undergoing medical treatment in Saudi Arabia and whose mandate ends in October, could be replaced by the present Minister for Water Shifferaw Jarso.

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Professor Mesfin's moral courage

The great teacher of non-violent resistance , Professor Mesfin Woldemariam, is still a great moral leader in prison. Prison sources say despite his suffering and sometimes poor health Professor Mesfin's spirit is incredible. He teaches fellow prisoners, political and non-political, the wisdom of Ghandi and the honour of suffering for freedom. He is cheerful and appearing to get younger everytime. Sources say that he seems to cherish his suffering for love and freedom as the past great leaders of non-violent movement in other parts of the world. His stature and teaching is also rekindling hope in all political prisoners. Professor Mesfin thinks ethical principles are not worth much if they only remain intellectual doodads. In August last year, He was quoted as saying that his prayer was to die and not to kill. The great man is living his prayers.

Source: ethio-Zagol

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Ethiopian women become the "target" of the Israel-Hezbollah war

The chaos in Lebanon has left many Ethiopians stranded or endangered. Today there are about 80,000 Ethiopians in Lebanon, according to press reports, these large numbers of Ethiopians in Lebanon are in a more difficult position.
The International Organization of Migration (IOM) has a team in Lebanon on behalf of the governments of Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, the Philippines, Moldova and Ghana but not Ethiopians. According to our sources, the Ambassador informed IOM and other Non-Governmental Organizations that the Embassy has the capability to mount its own evacuation.
But the case stands out quite the contrary, with an estimated 80,000 Ethiopian nationals in Lebanon of whom 50,000 are women employed as domestic labor. According to our sources, Ethiopian domestic workers have become omnipresent in Lebanon. It isn't surprising to learn that the employment process is the 21st Century slavery and the workers often mistreated as slaves.
These Ethiopians earn more than they could in their homeland, Most of them went to Lebanon to do cleaning, cooking and caring for children-jobs that Lebanese are generally not willing to take though the services are in high demand. Ethiopians went to Lebanon with the intention of working hard to make better lives for themselves and their families. In most cases, Some are struggling to be paid fully, and many simply had their wages withheld. Statisticss do show higher rates of reported maltreatment in Lebanon than elsewhere in the world and is perceived to have the highest rates of worker abuse. Ethiopian workers living in Lebanon experience some form of maltreatment, physical and sexual abuse, ranging from non-payment of wages to verbal, according to our sources.
These Ethiopians are in an area which was directly on the onslaught of the bombing. There are so many problems these Ethiopians are facing to move themselves out. The families they work for and other many drivers are not willing to take these Ethiopians to the safest areas in Lebanon. The other problem these Ethiopians have faced is that roads and bridges have been destroyed by the Israeli bombing in the area. The Ambassador to Lebanon, interviewed by the VOA Amharic, Addisu Abebe, said yesterday that the Embassy is helping these Ethiopians to be moved to Syria but our confirmed sources revealed that the Embassy only helped the people from "Tigray" region and those who are supportive of TPLF. These women have paid over $500 USD to get assistance through the embassy but the embassy is now shutting them down without giving the promised assistance.
The TPLF embassy was hiring buses to transport those who are originally from Tigray and supporters of TPLF. The embassy have only evacuated about 12 members of TPLF cadres in Lebanon.
In the meantime, it appears that the Lebanese have begun accusing the Ethiopians as they are "Bete_Israelites(Flashas)" and the Lebanese have kept on attacking these Ethiopians due to the Israeli aerial bombing in Lebanon.
Given the number of Ethiopians scattered all over Lebanon and Syria, and due to the conditions on the ground, the fact that many of these Ethiopians don't have travel documents, and the Lebanon employers locked these Ethiopians in the house like their domestic pet so they don't have to leave the country is ruthless, these young Ethiopian women become the "target" of the Israel-Hezbollah war.
Meles is spending the money that he was funded from World Bank to invade Somalia so that he can satisfy his Thirsty For Blood.

God Bless Ethiopia

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The new militant Tigray troops move towards Somalia

The new militant Tigray troops move towards Somalia was greeted by harsh words from the Somali militants, who have been trying to take over Somalia and install an Islamic peaceful regime. "We will declare jihad (holy war) if the Ethiopian government refuses to withdraw their troops from Somalia," a top Islamic official, Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed.
The Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Somalia, Francois Lonseny Fall, today urged leaders of the Transitional Federal Government and the Supreme Council of the Islamic Courts to restrain their forces. He urged both sides to resume the dialogue opened in Khartoum on 22 June.The Somali Prime Minister Ali Gedi said Wednesday that Muslim militia had moved to within 40 kilometers (25 miles) of the government's base in Baidoa, about 250 kilometers (155 miles) northwest of the capital Mogadishu, and intended to strike the town in violation of a truce. Dealing with Sheikh Aweys means dealing with Bin Laden, Prime Minister of Somalia Said.The Islamists furiously denied the charge, but allowed that forces loyal to the Supreme Islamic Council of Somalia (SICS) who seized the capital from a US-backed warlord alliance last month after fierce bat

tles, were near Baidoa.Hundreds of Ethiopian troops began patrolling the town of Baidoa in armoured vehicles Thursday, less than a day after Islamic militants moved closer to the base of the weak, United Nations-backed government.The advance on Baidoa by the Islamist had prompted the government to go on high alert and neighbouring Ethiopia to declare it was prepared to invade Somalia to defend the government.The United States is gravely concerned by reports that militia aligned with the Islamic courts are advancing toward Baidoa, the interim locations of the Somalia Transitional Federal Institutions," said State Department spokesman Sean McCormack in a statement.Washington expressed "grave concern" over reports that Somalia's powerful Islamist movement was planning to attack the seat of a transitional government backed by the United States.
Deployment of foreign forces in Somalia - is premature and could make matters worse, Djibouti's

Foreign Minister, Mahamoud Ali Youssouf, said. "Djibouti's position is that the main parties in Somalia have embarked on a process of dialogue," Yusuf told HAN, Geeska Afrika and Regional News Agencies. "Let's give that process a chance before we introduce foreign forces."
The two Countries are traditional enemies, but one of the Yemeni Diplomat who refused to mention his name said sadly, "Somali President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed who use to work with the Dergue Regime and now with the Present Tigray Fundamentalist Axumite regime in Gonder appealed Melez Zenawi for his support to destroy the current peace and stability in Southern Somalia."
UIC Chairman Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed said: "What Somalis need today is assistance in holding consultations, negotiating with each other and resolving their differences by talking to each other."
Ambassador Francois Fall. “I appeal to both sides to respect the ceasefire and other provisions of the Khartoum agreement, including their commitment to refrain from any provocations that could lead to an escalation of the situation,” he said. “The place to deal with differences is at the negotiating table.” Sources: HAN, ENA, UN and Local sources.

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TPLF is asking IOM for assistance only for 2,000 Ethiopians

Today, In a press release, IOM, International Organization for Migration, “There has been much focus on the evacuation of nationals from developed countries. But as the increasing number of requests to IOM from governments show, there are many, many thousands of stranded migrants from poorer countries who are in a particularly vulnerable situation and who must not be forgotten,” said IOM Director General, Brunson McKinley.
IOM continues on its statemnet saying that most of the stranded migrants are without money and travel documents. Many, if not most, are domestic workers brought to Lebanon by recruitment agencies and whose families depend on the remittances they send home.
TPLF, which estimates it has about 20,000 of its nationals in Lebanon, is asking for assistance for 2,000 people it says are in a dire condition.
What about the 30,000 women and over 10,000 men Ethiopians who were sold to Lebanon? Don't they need assistance?
What about the rest of stranded Ethiopians in Lebanon who have asked to be evacuated?
IOM says that these migrants have been abandoned by employers who have already sought refuge elsewhere.
I suspect those 2000 people are a group of people from SAA(Shire, Axum, Adwa).

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US cautions Ethiopia on Somalia

PRETORIA (Reuters) - The United States has cautioned Ethiopia not to become embroiled in Somalia, although it could not confirm reports Ethiopian troops were already in the country, a senior U.S. official said on Friday.
"We have told them not to get drawn into this provocation," U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Jendayi Frazer told journalists by video-conference.
Witnesses said Ethiopian troops moved closer to Somalia's capital Mogadishu on Friday, putting pressure on Islamists who have risen to power in the Horn of Africa nation and challenging the authority of its Western-backed interim government.
Frazer said Washington believed "hardline elements" within the so-called Islamic courts group wanted to extend their territorial control and hoped that more moderate players within the Islamist camp would prevail.
"Why aren't the moderate elements speaking out versus this element that is trying to spark a conflict?" she said.
Frazer said the United States has heard reports international elements were entering Somalia, but did not give any details.
"There are obviously foreign terrorists in Somalia," Frazer said.
The Islamists took Mogadishu from U.S.-backed warlords in June, complicating efforts to re-establish centralised control over a chaotic country that has not had a central government since the 1991 ouster of a dictator.
Ethiopia has denied incursions into Somalia but threatened to crush any Islamist bid to take Baidoa -- the seat of the provisional government -- or cross the border.

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Somali Islamist Leader Urges Holy War on Ethiopia

By MOHAMED OLAD HASSAN - Associated Press
July 21, 2006 posted 4:38 pm EDT
BAIDOA, Somalia (AP) - Somalia's top Islamic leader called Friday for a holy war against Ethiopia to drive out troops the largely Christian nation sent to protect the internationally backed Somali government.
The radical Islamic forces control more of Somalia than the government, and have made clear they consider themselves the legitimate authority in the country.
Sheik Hassan Dahir Aweys, in an angry radio broadcast, said Ethiopia deployed troops to the government's base in Baidoa, 150 miles northwest of Mogadishu, to bolster what he described as a puppet regime.
He said President Abdullahi Yusuf, his longtime rival, has "been a servant of Ethiopia for a long time."
"I am calling on the Somali people to wage a holy war against Ethiopians in Baidoa," said Aweys, who is accused by the U.S. government of ties to al-Qaida. "They came to protect a government which they set up to advance their interests."
"We must defend our sovereignty," he declared on Radio Shabelle.
The Islamic group organized anti-Ethiopia demonstrations Friday in the capital, Mogadishu, and militiamen shot dead two people who joined a daring counter-demonstration.
Residents of Baidoa reported seeing hundreds of Ethiopian troops, in uniform and in marked armored vehicles, entering the city on Thursday and taking up positions around President Yusuf's compound.
Ethiopian and Somali government officials have denied Ethiopian troops are in the country, though witnesses from five towns have reported seeing them. The government's deputy information minister, Salad Ali Jeele, maintained Friday that people were seeing government militia wearing uniforms given to them by Ethiopia.
Reliance on Ethiopia appears to make the government beholden to the country's traditional enemy and hurts its legitimacy. Anti-Ethiopia sentiment still runs high in much of this almost entirely Muslim country, which is why the government and Ethiopia, a mostly Christian nation, may want to keep the troop deployment quiet.
The neighboring countries are traditional enemies, although Somalia's president has asked Ethiopia for its support.
The Ethiopians kept off the streets of Baidoa for most of Friday. Residents saw them move in trucks between their positions earlier in the day, said Salah Adow, a resident in the town.
Pro-government militiamen set up an extra check point on the road leading to the capital to bolster security in Baidoa. Militias were not patrolling the streets, except for armed escorts of government officials.
Residents of Baidoa appeared unfazed by the presence of Ethiopian troops. Tensions sparked by fears of attacks by Islamic militants earlier in the week eased Friday in the town.
Ethiopia's move could give the internationally recognized Somali government its only chance of curbing the Islamic militia's increasing power. But the incursion could also be just the pretext the militiamen need to build public support for a guerrilla war.
If the competition for power should become violent, there is little doubt that Ethiopia has the superior fighting force. Ethiopia sent troops into Somalia in 1993 and 1996 to quash Islamic militants attempting to establish a religious government.
Somalia has been without an effective central government since warlords toppled dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991 and then turned on each other, carving much of the country into armed camps ruled by violence and clan law.
The interim government has been weakened by internal rivalries and is distrusted by some Somalis because it includes warlords linked to past violence and instability. The Islamic group portrays itself as a new force capable of bringing order and unity.
The United States on Thursday urged Ethiopia to exercise restraint and said the European Union, the United States, the African Union, the Arab League and others in an international contact group on Somalia will meet soon to consider the volatile situation.
U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan expressed concerns about the increased tensions near Baidoa and urged dialogue, according to a U.N. statement Thursday.
On Wednesday, the Islamic militia reached within 20 miles of Baidoa, prompting the government to go on high alert. The militia began pulling back Thursday as more than 400 Ethiopian troops entered Baidoa.
The United States has accused the Supreme Islamic Courts Council of links to al-Qaida that include sheltering suspects in the deadly 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. In a recent Internet posting, al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden urged Somalis to support the militants and warned nations not to send troops here.
The Islamic militia has installed strict religious courts, sparking fears it will become a Taliban-style regime.

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Somali Islamists demand withdrawal of TPLF forces

AFP
July 21, 2006
MOGADISHU -- Somalia's powerful Islamist movement on Friday demanded the immediate withdrawal of Ethiopian troops who have moved into the town of Baidoa to protect the seat of the country's weak government.
As Baidoa residents reported the arrival of more Ethiopian military vehicles in the town overnight, the Islamists said that they could not accept their presence on Somali soil but stopped short of threatening to attack them. "We are urging Ethiopia to immediately and without delay withdraw its troops and stop interfering in Somali affairs," said Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, chair of the executive committee of the Supreme Islamic Council of Somalia.
"We are urging Ethiopia to just be a good neighbor," he said in Mogadishu, which the Islamists seized from a US-backed alliance of warlords last month and from where they are expanding their control.
In Baidoa, about 250 kilometers (155 miles) northwest, residents said that at least nine more large Ethiopian military vehicles carrying supplies, but no troops, moved into the town early on Friday.
"Nine big trucks arrived into Baidoa carrying logistics for the Ethiopian troops," Baidoa resident Hassan Moalim Ahmed said. "There were no soldiers in the lorries, but they had food and military items."
These followed an initial convoy of more than 100 trucks with several hundred Ethiopian soldiers that rolled into Baidoa and surrounding areas on Thursday, after Islamist militia advanced on a nearby town.
The Islamists pulled back on Thursday but not before Somali Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi accused them of plotting to attack Baidoa and the government in violation of a truce and mutual recognition deal.
The largely powerless Somali transitional government and Ethiopia continued to deny the presence of any Ethiopian troops on Somali territory.
"This is absolute propaganda from the Islamists," Somali government spokesman Abdirahman Mohamed Nur Dinari said. "There are no Ethiopian troops in Baidoa. Anybody with the evidence should come forward.
" But a senior Somali government security source said "a few" Ethiopian troops were in Baidoa, although he insisted that they were there to train Somali troops and were not an occupying or protective force.
"A few Ethiopian officers who are here to help the government train security forces have arrived," the official said on condition of anonymity.
He insisted that the numbers were small and maintained that the situation had been exaggerated.
"The media and Mogadishu-based Islamists have blown the matter out of proportion," the security official said. "No Ethiopian troops are here to occupy Somalia.
"As a friendly neighboring country, they will assist the government to form its own forces," he said.

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Part II: Reviews that should be made by the US Representatives

http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2005/61569.htm
Arbitrary or Unlawful Deprivation of Life(2005)
During the year paramilitary groups committed unlawful killings, including political killings. The Ethiopian Human Rights Council (EHRCO) reported that from January to March armed militia killed several members of the opposition All-Ethiopia Unity Party/Coalition for Unity and Democracy (AEUP/CUD) in the Amhara Region. For example, on January 19, militia killed AEUP member Anley Adis and local AEUP chairman Eyilegne Wendimneh, both of Debay Telat-gen District, Yebabat Kebele. On February 28, militia killed Tilahun Kerebe of Ankesha District, Sostu Shumata Zegsa Abo Kebele; and on March 21, Alamir Aemero of Shikudad District, Absela Kebele. By year's end, police had arrested two suspects in the killing of Tilahun Kerebe.
The Oromo National Congress (ONC) reported that, between March 19 and September 24, police, militia, and kebele (local administration) officials shot and killed 24 members and supporters. For example, on March 28, police shot and killed Ahmed Adem of Chelia District, Ijai Town. On June 12, police shot and killed parliamentarian-elect Tesfaye Adane, representing Arsi Negeli Town, East Shoa Zone. Some of these killings were a result of confrontations in which both sides were armed. By year’s end, three policemen suspected of being involved in the killing of parliamentarian-elect Tesfaye Adane were detained at Zway Prison and their case was under investigation.
EHRCO reported that on April 23, kebele officials shot and killed Hassan Endris, a coordinator for the CUD in South Wollo Zone, Were-Ilu District, Kebele 11, in the Amhara Region. On May 15, government security forces shot and killed Sheikh Osman Haji Abdella of Shashamane District, Hurso Sembo Kebele, Oromo Region.
The Ethiopian Social Democratic Federalist Party (ESDFP) reported that on August 18 army troops killed Bezela Lombiso of Gibe District in the Southern Nations, Nationalities, and Peoples Region, and raped his wife. Bezela faced charges of killing a policeman during the 2000 national and regional elections.
The CUD reported that on September 11 armed militia beat CUD member Asefa Getahun and that he died of his injuries the following day. On October 1, local militia shot and killed CUD member Girma Biru, of Sultulta Wereda, Mulo Town. The CUD stated that local administrators and armed militia were responsible for the October 11 extrajudicial killing of Mosse Wasse, in Shoga District, west Gojjam/Jiga, Amhara Region; and the October 16 extrajudicial killing of Tila Tsega, at Lay Gaynt/Nefas Mewucha, North Gonder.
In October 2004 EHRCO reported several alleged killings by police. For example, on October 18, police shot and killed Geletaw Mamo, of North Shoa Zone, Keya Gebriel Kebele, Amhara Region. A suspect in the killing was in police custody in the town of Jima. Authorities released a suspect in the November 2004 fatal police shooting of Nesredin Shehselo, a baker in Bole Subcity, Addis Ababa, on bail. Three suspects in the November 2004 fatal police shooting of Ashenafi Tabor, of Ilu District, Teji Town, were in custody at Sebeta police station. A suspect in the December 2004 fatal police shooting of Efrem Alemayehu, of Kirkos Subcity in Addis Ababa, was in police custody. A suspect in the January 3 fatal police shooting of Kebede Uzo, of Jijiga Town in the Somali Region, was in police custody in Jijiga.
There were no significant developments in the following cases of persons killed by security forces in 2004: the March killing of ninth-grade student Alemu Tesfaye in Oromiya Region; the killing of high school student Amelework Buli of Oromiya Region; the March to May killings of AEUP supporters; and the June incident of military personnel colliding with and then firing on a civilian vehicle in Gode town, killing 10 persons.
There were no developments in the case of district police responsible for the 2003 killing of opposition Southern Ethiopian People's Democratic Coalition (SEPDC) member Aeliso Tieliso.
The government reported that prosecutions had begun against several individuals suspected of the December 2003 to May 2004 extrajudicial killings of 13 Anuak civilians in the Gambella Region. In March Amnesty International reported that government soldiers had killed, raped, and tortured hundreds of Anuaks in the Gambella Region during that period.
During 2005 EHRCO reported that, from June 6 to 8, the police and army shot and killed 42 unarmed demonstrators in Addis Ababa. Between November 1 and 7, military and police forces opened fire on rioters who were throwing rocks, and in some cases were armed with machetes and grenades, killing at least 40 individuals in Addis Ababa (see section 2.b.). For example, on June 6, following unrest at Addis Ababa University, police shot and killed Shibre Desalegn of Yeka Subcity and Yesuf Abdela, a student at Kotebe Teacher’s Training College. On June 8, police shot and killed 16-year-old student Nebiy Alemayehu of Kolfe Subcity, and Zulufa Surur (a mother of seven children), while security forces killed 16-year-old brothers Fekadu Negash and Abraham Yilma. Federal police acknowledged the death of 26 persons on June 8 following an unlawful demonstration. Several police were also killed during the November riots. On December 7, the government established an independent commission of inquiry to investigate circumstances surrounding the killings. The commission publicly issued a call for information and complaints.
EHRCO reported that on July 24 and 26 unidentified persons detonated hand grenades inside 4 hotels and a residence in the town of Jijiga, killing 5 persons and injuring 31. Police took suspects into custody and the case was under investigation.
Armed elements of the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF) and the Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF) continued to operate within the country. Clashes with government forces on numerous occasions resulted in the death of an unknown number of civilians, government security forces, and OLF and ONLF troops and members.
At year's end there were approximately two million landmines in the country, many dating from the 1998-2000 war with Eritrea. During the year landmines killed seven civilians, injured four, and destroyed seven vehicles in districts bordering Eritrea. The government demining unit continued to make limited progress in its survey and demining of border areas. United Nations Mission in Eritrea and Ethiopia (UNMEE) officials reported that new landmines were planted on both sides of the Ethiopian‑Eritrean border during the year.The government and UNMEE engaged in demining activities in selected areas along the border and disseminatedinformation on the whereabouts of suspected mined areas to local residents.
In June, July, October, and November, suspects arrested for the April 2004 hand grenade attack on a television room at Addis Ababa University (AAU) during a Tigrigna language news program appeared in court; the trial was scheduled to resume in January 2006.
There were no developments in the May 2004 hand grenade attack on a Tigrayan-owned shop in Debre Zeit, Oromiya Region. Police blamed the OLF for the attack.
Ethnic clashes resulted in hundreds of deaths during the year (see section 5).
The federal high court in Addis Ababa continued to arraign and prosecute those formally charged with committing genocide and other war crimes, including extrajudicial killings, under the 1975-91 Derg regime (see section 1.e.).
b. Disappearance
There were reports of disappearances perpetrated by government forces during the year, some of which may have been politically motivated. In nearly all cases, security forces abducted persons and detained them in undisclosed locations for varying lengths of time ranging from weeks to months. Thousands of such cases occurred in response to calls for struggle against the government by the OLF in Oromiya and during post-election public demonstrations in November and December.
EHRCO reported the disappearance of 17 persons between June 8 and 10. On June 8 police abducted Ashenafi Berhanu, Tsegaye Neguse, Daniel Worku, and Adem Hussien, all working in Addis Ababa, and Jelalu Temam of Arada Subcity in Addis Ababa, and the brothers Girum Seifu and Mekonnen Seifu of Lideta Subcity; on June 9, security forces abducted Endeshaw Terefe of Addis Ketema Subcity in Addis Ababa, and federal police abducted Daniel Abera, Tesfaye Bacha, Tesfaye Jemena, Bonsa Beyene, and Getu Begi of Bole Subcity in Addis Ababa; and on June 10, Solomon Bekele of Lideta Subcity, and Amanuel Asrat, Mesfin Mergia, and Dawit Demerew of District 9, Kebele 7. The whereabouts of these individuals were not known.
There were no new developments in the May 2004 detention of Jigsa Soressa, a guard at the Mecha and Tulema Association (MTA), an Oromo nongovernmental organization (NGO), who reportedly continued to be detained at Addis Ababa prison.
The government and independent sources reported that Oromo singer Raya Abamecha, who disappeared in 2004, had returned to Addis Ababa. Details of Abamecha's disappearance were not known at year's end.
On June 9, three Ethiopian air force personnel landed a military helicopter at Ambouli, Djibouti; two of them reportedly requested asylum, but an Ethiopian military delegation reportedly convinced them to return to Ethiopia the next day. AI and UNHCR attempted to visit them in Djibouti but were refused. At year’s end, family members told local press that the pilots were detained at an air force base and were restricted from seeing visitors.
c. Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment
Although the law prohibits the use of torture and mistreatment, there were numerous credible reports that security officials often beat or mistreated detainees. Opposition political parties reported frequent and systematic abuse of their supporters by police and regional militias.
EHRCO reported that on May 14, Abdeta Dita Entele, a member of the opposition coalition Oromo National Congress/United Ethiopian Democratic Forces of Siraro District in the Oromo Region, committed suicide following the severe beatings he received from kebele officials.
On October 16, two men armed with pistols attacked Daniel Bekele, a policy advocate for the NGO ActionAid Ethiopia and a member of the executive committee of the Network of Ethiopian Nongovernmental Organizations and Civil Society Organizations, which monitored the May 15 elections. According to ActionAid, the armed men beat him in the eye. At year’s end, Bekele was in police detention on charges of treason and genocide.
Authorities took no action against police responsible for the February and March 2004 police beatings of students, teachers, and parents at Oromiya Region high schools and universities; or against militia responsible for May 2004 attacks on its members reported by the opposition All-Ethiopia Unity Party. Security forces beat persons during demonstrations (see section 2.b.).
In October 2004 an undisclosed number of the approximately 330 students expelled from Addis Ababa University following the January 2004 Oromo student protests, who had been ordered by police to kneel and run barefoot on sharp gravel for several hours, were readmitted to the university (see section 2.b.).
There were no significant developments in cases of beatings and torture committed by security forces in 2003.
Unlike in previous years, there were no reports that security forces beat journalists.
On August 11, local and international media reported that the federal high court sentenced to death two former senior government officials accused of torturing political opponents during the former Mengistu regime -- former National and Public Security Minister Tesfaye Woldeselase and Leggesse Belayneh, former head of criminal investigations.
During the year ethnic clashes resulted in hundreds of injuries and deaths (see section 5).
Prison and Detention Center Conditions
Prison and pretrial detention center conditions remained very poor, and overcrowding continued to be a serious problem. Prisoners often were allocated fewer than 21.5 square feet of sleeping space in a room that could contain up to 200 persons. The daily meal budget was approximately 25 cents (2 birr) per prisoner, and many prisoners had family members deliver food daily or used personal funds to purchase food from local vendors. Prison conditions were unsanitary, and access to medical care was unreliable. There was no budget for prison maintenance.
In detention centers police often physically abused detainees. Diplomatic observers reported firsthand accounts of such beatings from Addis Ababa University student detainees in Oromiya. Authorities generally permitted visitors, but sometimes denied them access to detainees.
While statistics were unavailable, there were some deaths in prison due to illness and poor health care. Prison officials were not forthcoming with reports of such deaths.
Authorities sometimes incarcerated juveniles with adults, if they could not be accommodated at the juvenile remand home. There was only one juvenile remand home for children under age 15, with the capacity to hold 150 children.
Human rights organizations reported that the government had transported 10 to 18 thousand individuals (mostly youths aged 18-23 detained during the November mass house-to-house searches in Addis Ababa) to Dedessa, a military camp formerly used by the Derg regime located 375 kilometers west of the capital. Observers expressed concern that the camp's remote location and lack of facilities threatened the health of detainees. Human rights organizations reported on similar detention camps in and around Bahir Dar. Most of these detainees were released by year’s end. The government transported an unknown number of other detainees to other detention facilities around the country during the same November period.By year’s end the government publicly announced that it had released all but three thousand detainees, who would be charged with relatively minor crimes potentially carrying sentences of up to several months confinement. International observers were denied access to the detention facilities, but local NGO Prison Fellowship Association was permitted access.
During the year the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) generally had access to federal and regional prisons, civilian detention facilities, and police stations throughout the country, and conducted hundreds of visits involving thousands of detainees. The government also granted diplomatic missions access, subject to advance notification, to prison officials. Authorities allowed the ICRC to meet regularly with prisoners without third parties being present. The ICRC received permission to visit military detention facilities where the government detained suspected OLF fighters. The ICRC also continued to visit civilian Eritrean nationals and local citizens of Eritrean origin detained on alleged national security grounds.
Government authorities continued to permit diplomats to visit prominent detainees held by the special prosecutor's office (SPO) for alleged involvement in war crimes and terrorist activities. However, the government denied representatives of the international community, including the ICRC, access to leaders of the CUD opposition party, members of civil society groups, and journalists detained in early November for alleged involvement in antigovernment demonstrations in Addis Ababa, who remained in federal police custody at Addis Ababa's Ma-Ekelawi detention facility at year's end. The government permitted Prison Fellowship Association and local religious leaders to visit these detainees.
d. Arbitrary Arrest or Detention
Although the law prohibits arbitrary arrest and detention, the government frequently did not observe these provisions in practice.
Role of the Police and Security Apparatus
The Federal Police Commission reports to the Ministry of Federal Affairs, which in turn is subordinate to the parliament. Local government militias also operated as local security forces largely independent of the police and the military. Petty corruption remained a problem in the police force, particularly among traffic policemen who solicited bribes from motorists. Impunity also remained a serious problem. The government rarely publicly disclosed the results of investigations into such types of abuses. The federal police acknowledged that many members of its police force as well as regional police lack professionalism.
The government continued its efforts to train police and army recruits in human rights. During the year the government continued to seek ICRC assistance to improve and professionalize its human rights training and curriculum to include more material on the constitution and international human rights treaties and conventions.
In late November parliament established a commission, whose members were appointed by the prime minister, to investigate the violent demonstrations of June and early November. The chair of the commission reported to a group of foreign ambassadors that it would begin in February 2006 to investigate alleged use of excessive force by security forces.
Arrest and Detention
Authorities regularly detained persons without warrants and denied access to counsel and family members, particularly in outlying regions, and for those thousands of young persons detained during and after the November riots. According to law, detainees must be informed of the charges against them within 48 hours, but this generally was not respected in practice. While there was a functioning bail system, it was not available for some offenses, including murder, treason, and corruption. In most cases authorities set bail between $115 and $1,150 (1 to 10 thousand birr), which was too costly for most citizens. In addition police officials did not always respect court orders to release suspects on bail. With court approval, persons suspected of serious offenses can be detained for 14 days while police conduct an investigation, and for additional 14‑day periods while the investigation continues. The law prohibits detention in any facilities other than an official detention center; however, there were dozens of crude, unofficial local detention centers used by local government militia. In the Oromiya region, a police training facility was used as a makeshift prison during and after the November riots.
The government provided public defenders for detainees unable to afford private legal counsel, but only when their cases went to court. While in pretrialdetention, authorities allowed such detainees little or no contact with legal counsel.
There were many reports from opposition party members that in small towns authorities detained persons in police stations for long periods without access to a judge, and that sometimes these persons' whereabouts were unknown for several months. Opposition parties registered many complaints during the year that government militias beat and detained their supporters without charge for participating in opposition political rallies (see section 1.c.).
The government continued its harassment of teachers, particularly in Oromiya and Tigray. The independent Ethiopian Teachers Association (ETA) reported that authorities detained numerous teachers and accused them of being OLF sympathizers, many of whom remained in prison at year's end. Some of the teachers had been in detention for several years without charges. Human rights observers suspected several of the prolonged detentions were politically motivated.
Police continued to enter private residences and arrest individuals without warrants.
Police detained journalists during the year (see section 2.a.).
Authorities took no action against Amhara Region government militia, district officials, police who arbitrarilydetained AEUP members in April and May 2004, or against police who arbitrarily detained ONC member Olbana Lelisa from May to July 2004 without filing charges against him.
During the year police detained persons for holding meetings and demonstrations (see section 2.b.).
Opposition groups alleged that some of the persons detained by the SPO were held for political reasons, an allegation that the government denied (see section 1.e.).
Following the June 6 to 9 demonstrations protesting the announced outcome of the May 15 parliamentary elections, police detained thousands of opposition members and other residents of Addis Ababa. Government security forces took three to four thousand residents from their homes and detained them in Zway prison outside the capital. EHRCO reported the illegal detention between June 10 and 16 of 74 opposition political party activists, businessmen, and students. Security forces beat and detained an estimated five thousand individuals in various prisons around the country. On June 29, the federal police reported that it had detained 4,455 "suspects;" most were released after several days of detention. In mid-September, however, 40 percent of the prisoners at Shoa Robit prison (742 of 1,866 prisoners), north of Addis Ababa, were young men arrested around the time of the June demonstrations on charges of dangerous vagrancy. In September the government arrested more than one thousand members of the CUD and UEDF opposition coalitions, following their announcement of plans to hold demonstrations on October 2. In November, 30-200 motorists were arbitrarily detained for honking their horns during the African Union summit opening ceremony in response to an opposition call for civil disobedience.
In November military and police conducted door-to-door searches in Addis Ababa, often at night, and detained without warrant between 10 and 18 thousand youths, aged 18 to 23, believed to have been involved in violent antigovernment demonstrations. In August and September police and local militia arrested six Oromo Federalist Democratic Movement (OFDM) members without warrant in the East and West Welega Zone of Oromiya Region: Shiferaw Fekadu, Fikru Benti, Mitiku Terfa, Abraham Jiregna, Abdeta Abraham, and Habte Tesema.
The OFDM reported that ruling Oromo People's Democratic Organization (OPDO) cadres harassed, intimidated, and detained hundreds of OFDM members who served as observers during the May 15 parliamentary elections. For example, in Arsi Zone, Assassa District, cadres arrested and detained Sheikh Mahmud Tusuru for several days. Authorities interrogated Gebeyehu Hayato, the son of a newly elected member of parliament, over 10 times. OFDM member Hussein Adem faced 20 days imprisonment in Sodere District. At year's end, nine OFDM members who served as observers during the May election remained detained in Gachi district of Illubabor zone. The OFDM reported to the NEB that local officials arrested 10 OFDM members in Kokosa Constituency, Nansibo District, Bale Zone. OFDM also reported the detention of 13 of its members in Borena Zone, Bule Hora District.
In response to attacks by armed opposition groups operating out of Somalia and Kenya, the military continued to conduct operations, which included occasional arbitrary detentions, in the Gambella, Somali, and Oromiya regions.
In November authorities re-arrested CUD member and mayor of Addis Ababa Dr. Berhanu Nega and Professor Mesfin Woldemariam, two prominent academics and human rights activists, for participating in planning antigovernment protests aimed at the removal of the government. At year's end they remained in confinement on charges of treason and genocide, along with several members of NGOs active in civic education, and independent journalists. Other prominent CUD leaders arrested included: CUD president Hailu Shawel; Dr. Yacob Hailemariam, a former prosecutor for the UN International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda; and CUD vice-president Ms. Birtukan Mideksa, a former judge. Their prison conditions were reported to be adequate, especially those of the CUD leaders, who had separate cells. However, access to legal counsel was sporadic, and there were serious concerns about access to adequate medical care.
Authorities took no action against Amhara Region government militia, district officials, and police who arbitrarily detained AEUP members in April and May 2004; or against police who arbitrarily detained ONC member Olbana Lelisa from May to July 2004 without filing charges against him.
Authorities took no action against police who detained hundreds of Oromo students and teachers for several weeks in detention centers on suspicion of being supporters of the OLF in 2004 (see section 1.c.).
Thousands of criminal suspects reportedly remained in pretrial detention, some for years. Some of the detainees were teachers and students from the Oromiya Region accused of involvement in OLF activities, or who were arrested after student unrest broke out in Oromiya in February and March 2004.
The government detained several persons without charge at the Gondar prison, some for years, while the police investigated their cases. In April, authorities sentenced Wondante Mesfin to life imprisonment following his conviction on murder charges; he had been in detention in Nefas Mewcha prison in South Gondar Zone since 1994.
e. Denial of Fair Public Trial
While the law provides for an independent judiciary, the judiciary remained weak and overburdened. Most perceived the judiciary to be subject to significant political intervention.
The government continued to decentralize and restructure the judiciary along federal lines with the establishment of courts at the district, zonal, and regional levels. The federal high court and the federal Supreme Court heard and adjudicated original and appeal cases involving federal law, transregional issues, and national security. The regional judiciary was increasingly autonomous and often heard regional cases.
Regional offices of the federal Ministry of Justice monitored local judicial developments. Some regional courts had jurisdiction over both local and federal matters, as the federal courts in those jurisdictions had not begun operation; overall, the federal judicial presence in the regions was limited. Anecdotal evidence suggested that some local officials believed they were not accountable to a higher authority. Pending the passage of regional legislation, federal procedural and substantive codes guide all judges.
To remedy the severe lack of experienced staff in the judicial system, the government continued to identify and train lower court judges and prosecutors, although officials acknowledged salaries did not attract the desired number of competent professionals.
Trial Procedures
According to the law, accused persons have the right to a fair public trial by a court of law within a "reasonable time;" the right to a presumption of innocence; the right to be represented by legal counsel of their choice; and the right to appeal. Despite these protections, closed proceedings occurred, at times authorities allowed detainees little or no contact with their legal counsel (see section 1.d.), and detainees usually were not presumed innocent. The public defender's office provides legal counsel to indigent defendants, although its scope remained severely limited, particularly with respect to SPO trials. Although the law explicitly stipulates that persons charged with corruption are to be shown the body of evidence against them prior to their trials, authorities routinely denied defense counsel access to such evidence before trial.
The law provides legal standing to some pre‑existing religious and customary courts and allows federal and regional legislatures to recognize other courts. By law, all parties to a dispute must agree that a customary or religious court will be used before it may hear a case. Shari'a (Islamic) courts may hear religious and family cases involving Muslims. In addition, other traditional systems of justice, such as councils of elders, continued to function. Although not sanctioned by law, these traditional courts resolved disputes for the majority of citizens who lived in rural areas, and who generally had little access to formal judicial systems.
The federal first instance court's seventh criminal branch handled cases of sexual abuse against women and children. By the end of the year the court had received 541 cases and had passed verdicts on 351 cases.
Three federal judges sat on one bench to hear all cases involving juvenile offenses. There was a large backlog of juvenile cases, and accused children often remained in detention with adults until officials heard their cases.
The military justice system lacked adequately trained staff to handle a growing caseload. Foreign assistance to train military justice officials resumed during the year.
There was no new information on the activities of the SPO, established in 1992 to create a historical record of the abuses committed during the Mengistu government (1975‑91, also known as the Derg regime) and to bring to justice persons responsible for human rights violations. Approximately one thousand persons remained in detention charged with Derg-era offenses. Court‑appointed attorneys, sometimes with inadequate skills and experience, represented many of the defendants.
Political Prisoners
The total number of political detainees during the year was estimated to be in the several thousands.
While the law stipulates that all suspects be arraigned before a court within 48 hours, the leaders of the CUD, civil society, and journalists were held without access to courts, counsel, and family for many days. Human rights groups and political parties (such as the CUD, UEDF, and OFDM) reported that police and local militia detained thousands of persons in police stations and detention camps for several days in order to conduct interrogations.